


Alucinatio

by AlexMeg



Series: 'Alucinatio' [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Angst and Romance, Caring Harry, Cuddling & Snuggling, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Draco Malfoy-centric, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lucius Malfoy's A+ Parenting, M/M, Minor Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Oblivious Harry Potter, One-Sided Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Panic Attacks, Pining Draco Malfoy, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Severus Snape has a soft spot for Draco malfoy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2020-04-23 14:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 57,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19153216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexMeg/pseuds/AlexMeg
Summary: "It's... it's not good," Harry tells them lowly. "They've given him a month's time, only."There is so much he needs to explain, but his head is foggy and exhausted and he can't think properly, can't think of how to relay all that he's learned."Have you heard of Alucinatio?" is what he starts with."The Daydream potion," Hermione says. "The person who intakes it experiences very vivid and realistic daydreams of all they could ever want, but is essentially in a severely catatonic state out in the external world, incapable of any basic functions."Harry nods. "Somebody's given it to Malfoy." He remembers the tattered remains of a black cloak wrapped around Malfoy. "I think it might have been Professor Snape."They take a minute to process that."And... the cure?" Ron asks."Tears of anyone the experiencer craves love of," Hermione answers.





	1. The Daydream Potion

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [[哈德]幻梦剂 Alucinatio（授权翻译）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20426651) by [porridge123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/porridge123/pseuds/porridge123)



> Translation in Chinese is also available at  
> Chinese Lofter: http://shahuhuporridge.lofter.com/post/1fec798a_1c686870c
> 
> A huge thank you from the bottom of my heart for this, porridge123 💙
> 
> Warnings for material that may be triggering up ahead, although I will not post anything too graphic. I will provide the warnings before each chapter, however.
> 
> This is my first HP story. I got into the fandom quite recently and hope I don't mess anything up. I'm also not English/British. I'm trying to learn the lingo, but I apologize sincerely in advance if I get anything wrong.
> 
> To all those that want to wait until the story is complete, the second part is not yet out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for graphic physical abuse, implications of rape
> 
> Please, please beware of these triggers.

 

“How many times do you expect me to absolve you, Lucius?” The Dark Lord asks, maintaining a convincing demeanor of repose and calm, and yet Lucius knows better. “Time and time again, you fail. And failure does seem to run in the Malfoy family. Your son, I can see, is no better than you.”

 

Draco’s first task had been unsuccessful. Not unsuccessful, per se, as the deed had been done and Dumbledore was dead, but it hadn’t been at Draco’s hand that he died the way Lord Voldemort had ordered for it to be. Lucius already knows that The Dark Lord had expected him to fail and had given him a severely difficult mission deliberately as punishment for his family, but Lucius senses that he was far more disappointed in the fact that Draco had come very close to fulfilling his task and yet didn’t, that it was, in fact, Severus Snape who committed the murder of Albus Dumbledore instead.

 

Lucius feels the nausea and trepidation roiling in his gut, the pounding of his heart thumping in his ears, the room filling with viscous and suffocating tension and terror. He stares firmly at a spot below near the Dark Lord’s feet, unable to meet his gaze. He thinks about apologizing to the Lord again, in the hopes that perhaps he will have mercy on him and his family once more, but he gets the feeling that that will not be the right course of action. The Dark Lord is not at all anticipating for him to seek his forgiveness. Lucius fears that asking for it will only make him angrier at the moment, so he stands with his hands clasped and his head bowed and stays silent.

 

He darts a quick, peripheral glance from the corner of his eye, seeing the hazy form of his son standing off to the side along with a few other Death-Eaters. He has adopted the same posture of obedience and fear, keeping his head and his gaze low, shoulders rigid and tense as he waits for the verdict and sentence.

 

The sentence is one Lucius does not foresee.

 

“There must be repercussions,” The Dark Lord says, his back to everyone. The snake, Nagini, slithers on the ground of the living room beside him. “An example must be set, so that no one overestimates my leniency. Your son’s loyalty to me is clearly not whole, and you, Lucius, seem to constantly find it fit to disappoint me.”

 

Lucius swallows. “Not at all, my Lord, I…”

 

“Silence!” Lord Voldemort bellows, breaking the calm and composed demeanor. Lucius immediately quiets. “I think you will think twice about it from now on when it’s your _boy_ who will suffer the consequences.”

 

The blood in his veins freezes to ice, his heart halting to a still.

 

“My… my Lord?” His voice barely comes out of his dry throat.

 

He can hear Draco’s quickening, panicked breaths from here in the pin-drop silence of the room.

 

The Dark Lord gestures with his hand in a beckoning wave in Draco's direction.

 

Lucius’ head snaps to his son, his eyes wide and his chest constricting with fear just as Yaxley and Greyback move forward. Draco’s face is flooded with terror and panic, his head turning to glance at the direction of the Dark Lord’s gesture. He sees the men approaching and stumbles around in a swift, frantic spin. There is a sheen of sweat beginning to glisten on his skin, his chest jouncing high and low along with his rapidly panting breaths as he begins to back away tremulously.

 

Yaxley and Greyback lurch forward and grab ahold of his biceps in a vice-like bruising grip, jostling him around violently to face them.

 

“Father!” Draco gasps out, his voice a shaky whimper that sends a couple of the surrounding Death-Eaters into a fit of laughter. Lucius feels a flush of humiliation and shame in his body at his son’s embarrassing reaction, his gaze roving uncomfortably around at the snickering men and women.

 

Whatever expression Draco sees on his face causes him to grow ashamed and abashed as well, his head lowering and his eyes flicking sideways to glance in the general direction of the other inhabitants of the Malfoy Manor, their sniggers still resounding throughout the dining room.

 

Draco swallows hard, his sharp throat bobbing visibly. He looks up into Lucius’ face again from beneath his white-blonde hair, and Lucius couldn’t quite stop his lips from tightening in reproach. He understands Draco is afraid, but it is not fit for Malfoy men to show such blatant displays of vulnerability and emotion in public no matter the situation, especially not in such a childish manner. He has tried so hard to instill control and composure in his son, and yet, Draco has never quite seemed to have learned.

 

Draco straightens then, raising his chin in a forced attempt to regain their characteristic Malfoy poise and grace. He schools his expression into a quivering, unstable sort of restraint and repose, but his body is still shaking.

 

“For every misstep of yours, past and present, it is your son that pays, Lucius,” Lord Voldemort warns lowly. “I suggest you watch yourself from here on.”

 

Lucius’ eyes enlarged, brows scrunched in desperately controlled horror that must have bled through in his face anyway. His heart is hammering in his chest, the sickening trepidation and panic enclosing its fingers around his gut and heart. They are about to take away his only son, his boy, and they will hurt him in unimaginable ways as punishment for both his _and_ Draco’s mistakes and—

 

“My… my Lord, please, with all due respect, Draco is merely a…”

 

“Take him away,” The Dark Lord orders with another careless wave of his hand, speaking over him as if he isn't speaking at all.

 

They Disapparate away with his son. Lucius jolts forward, hand reaching out as if he could catch them before they vanished. His hand is trembling, widened eyes staring at the spot where his son stood a second ago, unable to process what had just happened.

 

It doesn’t seem to sink in for a long, long time.

 

**...**

 

Lucius sees Narcissa standing by the window of their bedroom, a glass of wine in her hand as she gazes out contemplatively.

 

He doesn’t know how he will tell her that they took their son away from their living room right under his nose. He stands in the doorway, feeling lost and like his chest has been carved out hollow.

 

Narcissa has noticed his presence from her peripheral vision. With a single glance in his direction, she puts down her glass of wine and begins to head towards him to greet him with a kiss to his cheek.

 

She stops at whatever look she sees on his gaunt and vacant face, her brows furrowing in alarm and concern.

 

“Lucius?” she says as she steps towards him, cautious and slow.

 

He can’t find the words, can’t think of where to begin and how to say it, his mind feeling barricaded. He tries, but all that leaves him is a haunted, “Draco…”

 

For a moment, Narcissa merely stands in silence.

 

And then she asks, calm and low, “Where is Draco?”

 

“Narcissa, they…” Lucius tries to continue, but he trails off, weary and quiet. He’s trying to breathe, but it's only shallow, the air not fully reaching his lungs.

 

“Where is my son?” she repeats, but the words come out even softer, merely a tremulous whisper.

 

“They took him,” Lucius finally manages to say, his mouth dry and his throat clogged. He clears his throat, trying to make his voice calm and controlled even when nothing else seems to be so anymore. “They took our son, Narcissa.”

 

“Took him?” Narcissa questions, her breaths quickening in panic, her chest jouncing rapidly. “Took him _where_ , Lucius?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“What are they going to do to him?” she demands, now shaking in her body and voice. There are tears filling her reddening eyes, sorrow and anger ablaze in them. “What do they want with him?”

 

“The Dark Lord wants to use him to set an example for others, and he wants to use him against me,” Lucius answers, and then swallows. “He wants to punish Draco and I, and he knows that the worst punishment he could inflict on me…”

 

Narcissa doesn’t seem to be listening anymore. Her knees weaken and she drops down heavily on the bed, her trembling fists bunching up the bedsheets tightly, her wide eyes darting side-to-side as if her mind is racing a million thoughts per second. She is struggling to breathe, the sorrow and horror dripping from her eyes.

 

Lucius sits down beside her and pick up one of her hands into his own. Her grip is hard enough for his own hand to ache, but he doesn’t let go of it.

 

**…**

 

 

Severus comes to hear of his godson’s fate the day after.

 

It’s nearly a week later that Voldemort calls for him.

 

He now stands before him, hands clasped together in front of him in a show of obedience and respect.

 

“Being one of my most competent and loyal followers, your services have been of utmost importance to me. You have even accomplished the great endeavor of killing Albus Dumbledore,” Voldemort says, pleased. “You must be rewarded, Severus.”

 

“You are most gracious, my Lord,” Severus responds, as he is expected to.

 

“What is it that you ask for?” Voldemort asks.

 

Severus doesn’t have to consider.

 

“If you accept, my Lord,” Severus says. He pauses for a moment. “I wish to see Draco Malfoy.”

 

**…**

 

They take Severus’ wand and put a brief blinding spell on him to ensure he won’t know of the location before they Apparate him.

 

“The Dark Lord’s orders,” Yaxley explains. “It’s merely a precaution, Severus.”

 

Once he’s inside the metallic door, warded heavily against magic, of the filthy cellar they must be keeping his godson captive in, Yaxley passes him his wand through the rectangular gap.

 

Severus snatches it off his hand and spins around, cloak sweeping around him as he does, away from the ogre-like man outside the door that is peering in, a split-second glimpse of his expression becoming affronted at his cold mannerisms. Severus forgets of his presence as soon as he looks away.

 

His eyes land on the boy, who has his bare back to the room and is lying on the floor, white-blonde hair tousled and knotted and dirtied with grime. He is trying to maintain a pretense of being asleep, but his battered body is shaking too much for it to be believable in any way. Severus moves towards him, in slow steps forward, until he is standing over him.

 

He kneels down behind the welted, pale back. “Draco,” Severus says quietly.

 

The tremors of the boy’s body cease immediately at the sound of his voice, now merely still.

 

Draco then turns, looking up to meet his gaze tentatively. The space around his wide grey eyes are bruised red with fatigue and weeping. His face has cuts and wounds all over. “Severus?”

 

Severus settles down beside the boy, the knee of one leg upturned and the other leg splayed sideways on the ground. “Sit up.”

 

He reaches into his cloak for the jar of salve he brought along.

 

Draco obliges, sitting up shakily, heels of his palms on the ground pushing him up, but careful not to put any weight on his feet, the toes of which are purple and crushed.

 

...

 

“Sick bastards,” Draco snarls, his voice shaking with fury and pain. “Crucio’d me, they did, Severus. So many times. Fuck them! Every single one of them." His breaths shudder and hitch in his vehemence and rage, his upper body shuddering and hitching along with them, sounding frantic and on the verge of weeping.

 

Severus listens silently and calmly to the boy’s ire and anguish, rubbing salve into the dark welts across the boy’s back as carefully as possible. Draco hisses when his fingers come into contact with a particularly sore wound.

 

Draco swallows audibly in the quiet of the room. “And father... if father were here…” he grits out, once he recovers. “If he knew of the things they did…”

 

Severus is fairly certain Lucius would have enough of an idea of the things that were happening to his son here. The elder Malfoy had seemed quite haunted and troubled in his anxiety and worry, but Severus can’t see what Lucius would be able to do even if he were present and watching it all.

 

Despite the unbreakable vow that Severus had formed with his mother, for doing all he could to protect Draco from the harm and danger he was to face during the task, going out of effect after Dumbledore’s death, Severus still feels a deep responsibility over the boy. He has never been one who was privy to attachment towards anyone, but Draco has been the only thing Severus has truly cared for after Lily (and by extension, her son, Harry Potter, even if that is a different and far more complicated matter).

 

Severus is not a soft man, but he has grown a soft spot for the young Malfoy, one that had developed when his godson was no more than an infant who would hide himself in his cloak and laugh. He has never been one that people would confide in, but the Malfoys have become somewhat a close part of his life and he has somehow become the primary confidant of Draco Malfoy.

 

All of their hands are tied, it seems. Going against the Dark Lord’s orders, searching for any way to free Draco is, logically and practically, not the best idea. It is only going to result in all of their deaths, Draco’s included, for Voldemort scrutinized every one of their movements and would have no difficulty in finding them no matter where they tried to hide.

 

This is all he can do, it seems.

 

"He'd fucking kill them if he could. The things they did... sick fucking lunatics..."

 

It is there that Severus sees it, no longer listening.

 

The bruises.

 

They are dark and deep on both sides of the little that is visible of the boy’s hips, merely a glimpse but seemingly finger-shaped by the gaps of undamaged pale skin between them, peeking out from the waistband of Draco’s black trousers. They camouflaged with the rest of the wounds on Draco’s body.

 

Severus stills completely for a moment at the sight of it, at the implications it brings to his mind. He’s spent a long time in the darkness, long enough to understand certain things that happen at the hands of evil and long enough to understand the signs that they happened.

 

Yet, Severus finds it desperately hard to believe. He thinks he must be mistaken.

 

He uses the tip of his wand to pull the waistband of the trousers away slightly in order to take a closer look.

 

Severus catches it enough to confirm that they are indeed caused by a harsh grip before, as expected, Draco shoves himself away with a gasp of surprise, scrambling away until he is facing Severus. He glares at Severus indignantly, brows furrowed over wide eyes and his mouth twisted in anger as if Severus had infringed upon him in some way.

 

“What the bloody _hell_ are you doing, Severus?” Draco hisses furiously.

 

“What are those marks, Draco?”

 

“That’s none of your concern, is it?”

 

Severus grips his bicep and hauls him forward, forcing him to look into his own eyes. The boy tries to thrash his hand off, but Severus holds firm. “I am your Godfather and I cared for you since you were no more than a blubbering child—"  _In the many ways that your father failed to,_ but Severus is certain the boy would loathe to hear that. “It _is_ my concern what happens to you, so I ask you again. What. happened. to you?”

 

Draco’s chest is rising and falling, anger still twisting his mouth and blazing in his grey gaze, but there was something else creeping in, something glistening in his sore eyes, reddening the rims of them.

 

“Just do what you came here to do, Severus,” Draco says, an underlying quiver in his voice, still trying to sound hard and irate, but it seems the mask is crumbling because he merely sounds weary. He tries again to make Severus’ grip release, trying to jerk his arm away, but it’s feeble and half-hearted.

 

“It can’t be what I think it means,” Severus says quietly. His chest feels strange, something pushing against the cold control he has managed to develop as merely a young boy and maintain all the way until now.

 

Draco tries hard to maintain his angry glare and snarl, but it doesn’t work. Instead, the anger and indignity is beginning to drain out of him. The twist of his mouth is slowly becoming a crumple of his chin, upturned sneering lips turning downwards in pain and hurt, and the glisten in his fearful eyes is now clearly tears of sorrow gathering together.

 

Severus’ gaze flicks down slowly as the silent confirmation, of the sickening implications he had in mind, from his godson’s crumbling expression begins to sink in, along with the burn of disgust and hatred beginning to threaten his unshakeable composure. His hands lower from the boy’s arms, curling into fists. He tries to regain his repose and coolness, but it is growing to be terribly difficult at the moment with the ache of rage in his head and the blinding red beginning to color his vision.

 

How dare they?

 

How dare they touch a boy, a mere child in their comparison, _his_ godson, in such an abhorrent way?

 

Outwardly, he has managed to maintain his stillness, keeping his body from lashing out in any explosive way, but the turmoil inside of him is beginning to blind him, and his body is beginning to shake of its own accord with the force of it.

 

He can sense Draco’s gaze on him, watching him try not to lose himself.

 

“Severus?” Draco says, tentatively, sounding small and afraid.

 

Severus can’t seem to speak, so he glances up at him, at his whitewashed and solemn face, a forced attempt to regain his poise and control of his emotions, but he only looks like a little boy trying to be strong without much credibility.

 

The boy swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing visibly. “However you may feel about me right now…” His voice sounds without much air, coming through a dry throat. He pauses, seemingly finding it hard to get his words out, blinking rapidly as thoughts blindside him. “You—you mustn’t tell father about this. Do you understand?”

 

Surely, the boy doesn’t blame himself for this.

 

“Draco—"

 

“He will leave me here to die.”

 

A clear and sharp contrast to the boy who revelled in his faith of his father’s protectiveness and rage over his suffering a few moments ago. Severus knew that for all of Draco’s gloating over his father’s status and name, using it as a threat against anyone who affronted him, the boy had never quite known where he stood in his father’s life, had never been able to see how Lucius cared for him because he had never expressed it to his son in any meaningful way. Lucius loved his son, undoubtedly, but he let too much get in the way of it, and that meant that he often regarded his son with disappointment and embarrassment if the boy ever fell short of living up to his expectations.

 

Severus himself found that it was difficult to predict the elder Malfoy’s reaction and feelings if he were to discover the lengths they went to in order to humiliate and torture his son. He may choose to dwell in his feelings of secondary degradation and how that affects his already tarnished reputation and image in the eyes of others first, rather than let his grief over the horror and anguish and torment his son suffered through overpower it.

 

“Please,” the boy pleads desperately, his breathless voice cracking, his composure, loosely held together, on the verge of falling apart once more.

 

When Severus is able to formulate a proper verbal response, he manages to force out an, “I will not tell.”

 

In the end, he doesn’t know how he could have ever said anything about this to anyone.

 

Draco’s face visibly sags with relief, eyes fluttering shut as a tremulous, heavy breath leaves him. He nods, eyes still closed.

 

There is silence, then.

 

Severus reaches for the salve again, intending to continue treating his godson.

 

“Do leave the salve here before you go, Severus,” Draco murmurs, weary and quiet, already too far from the boisterous and loud boy he knew. He lays back down on the floor and rolls over, facing the wall and turning his back to Severus. “...I will need it for later.”

 

Severus silently moves forward until he is sitting behind him. He pushes his godson’s shoulder slightly so that more of his back is exposed and continues massaging it into the sore parts.

 

It doesn’t take long for the boy to start crying, breaking down as if he had been waiting to be left alone, holding it in too long. His shoulders begin to heave with sobs, rattling his body as he pulls his knees up slightly into himself.

 

When Severus is done treating his wounds, he moves back up to lean against the wall, unclasps the neck of his cloak and drapes it over Draco’s trembling form, and in a rare display of deep affection that has perhaps only ever been reserved for the young Malfoy, places a hand on top of his white-blonde hair in attempt to console. Draco’s hands bunch up the cloak from the inside as he cries to the point of being unable to breathe, tugging it in as if trying to soak in all the comfort he could of the gesture.

 

Draco falls asleep soon after, once his body has exhausted itself. Severus doesn’t move from his place for hours, doesn’t move his hand from Draco’s hair, remaining the still and steady presence that he has always been in his godson’s life.

 

…

 

“Six hours are up, Severus. It’s time to leave.” It’s Garrison Goyle this time, peering in through the rectangular gap of the door.

 

Severus doesn’t move from his position immediately, a deep reluctance and weariness cementing his body to remain where it is. He looks down at his sleeping godson, his thin torso rising and falling with the cadenced lilts of exhales and inhales.

 

After a while, he does get up. Hand sliding off Draco’s hair slowly, he sits up straight, taking his wand. He hoists himself to his feet and walks towards the door.

 

“Uh, pass… pass your wand, please,” Goyle says.

 

Severus stares coldly at him for a moment, letting the man’s gaze skitter away nervously before he proffers his wand through the gap.

 

“Severus?”

 

He stills when he hears his godson’s voice from behind him, thick and slurring with slumber.

 

The door opens behind him, but Severus turns away and moves towards Draco. He kneels beside him.

 

“Yes, Dragon?” It leaves him before he can think of it, an affectionate term that Severus scarcely uses, if ever, these days, but it was the most natural thing to do until a decade ago, when Draco was eight and his father grew tired of his son being infantilized and Draco demanded everyone to only call him by his name. His mother persisted in using the fond nickname to this day against Lucius’ opposition, but Severus respected the boy’s wishes.

 

Draco’s lips curve imperceptibly into a small smile, before he sobers.

 

“Will you be coming back?” he asks softly. He sounds a little more confident than he did when he called for him.

 

Severus loathes to think that Draco ever doubted he would.

 

Severus knows how the world out there would think of something like this happening to a boy, and a Malfoy boy no less. He also knew they would be even less sympathetic to a Death-Eater. He only wishes that Draco didn’t see him as a part of that world.

 

Yet, when silence persists a little too long, Draco begins to grow uncertain. The hope begins to drain from his eyes, the silver gaze darting away.

 

“I’d rather know now if you won’t than—than to wait, is all.”

 

Severus reaches out to readjust the cloak over his godson’s shoulder, covering him properly.

 

“As soon as I can, Draco,” Severus murmurs.

 

Draco’s eyes examine him, perhaps searching for something, perhaps trying to gauge his honesty, before he nods. His eyes slip shut again. Severus watches him return to slumber, something trying to make its way into his chest, but he knows if he gives into it and lets it in, lets it grow so much so that it guides his actions, that it can ruin too much. Everything. And they can’t afford any of it at this point.

 

He stands up and walks out the door, where Goyle stands in wait to cast a temporary blinding spell and escort him out of the house.

 

**…**

 

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, burning agony shooting through the scar on his temple. He lays in his bed, trembling hands clutching at his hammering head. He feels the familiar explosion of anguish that becomes a rage so deep and dark, it seems to fill him like melting hot metals over his insides.

 

And then he’s standing in a room, a foul scent of sweat and blood and vomit permeating through it, bare and empty.

 

Save for a Death-Eater—Rowle and a familiar trembling pale, slender figure in the corner, white-blonde head bowed as he weeps silently. Yaxley grips Malfoy by the hair and drags him across the floor towards himself. Malfoy is shaking and now sobbing loudly, the knee of his black trousers scraping harshly across the ground, hands shooting up to the grasp on his head, fumbling for the fingers to open, to no avail.

 

And then he’s thrown at his own feet.

 

He stares down at him, the burn of rage and disgust and disappointment flooding through in his veins and his chest at the sight of him.

 

“Look at me,” he hears himself command in Voldemort’s voice.

 

Malfoy obeys, his face flushed and crumpled with tears and terror, his grey eyes red, bruised and wet, his entire face bruised and wet.

 

“I wonder, so often,” Voldemort says. “I gave you one task, Draco. Only one. You had Albus Dumbledore cornered, did you not?”

 

The pale, battered boy nods, but he’s shaking so much that it hardly looks like one. He feels the back of his own hand collide hard with Malfoy’s cheek, forcing Malfoy to cry out in pain and surprise as he jolts sideways to the ground, landing on his arms.

 

“Is this how you respond to your Lord?” he hisses.

 

It takes too long for Malfoy to speak. It only makes Harry—Voldemort—angrier.

 

“N-no, my Lord.” Malfoy mumbles, quiet and hardly coherent, swallowing to control himself. He lifts himself up on his palms. Voldemort kneels down and grabs his bicep and snaps him around to face him. Malfoy flinches hard, letting out one gasping, hard sob. He peers into the boy’s flushed and crumpled face, eyes squeezed shut with his head turned away, shaking and crying silently.

 

“You had Albus Dumbledore cornered, did you not?” Voldemort repeats.

 

“Y-yes, my Lord,” he chokes out.

 

“And you did not kill him.”

 

“-H-he is dead, m-my Lord.” His voice breaks through his rapid breathing.

 

“But did _you_ kill him?”

 

“N-no, my Lord. Severus Sn—"

 

“Do tell why,” Voldemort says. “I explicitly said he was to die at your hand, and yet it was not at your hand that he died. Why is that so?”

 

Malfoy doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know how to, and he knows that his lack of an answer will only result in making the Dark Lord angrier. He begins to tremble even more, whispering, “Please.”

 

Voldemort tilts his head. “Perhaps you find in yourself a distaste for violence and murder, Draco?”.

 

Malfoy shakes his head vigorously.

 

“And when the time comes, you will not be able to do even the bare minimum in the name of your Lord?”

 

“No, n-no, my Lord,” Malfoy pleads, shaking his head desperately. “No—"

 

“You have proven yourself useless to me,” Voldemort hisses, throwing him back against the ground violently. Draco cries out in pain as his wounded body collides with the hard floor. “But perhaps now your worthless father will feel more inclined to make himself useful.”

 

Voldemort stands up and points his wand at Malfoy.

 

“ _Crucio!"_

 

Malfoy’s scream, high and loud, resounds through the entire room. He writhes on the ground, finger joints and toes stiffly curling and his arms and legs shaking and throwing out as he thrashed in anguish, trying to find some way to lessen the agony in his body and gaining no purchase.

 

Voldemort stops after ten whole minutes. Malfoy slumps back down on the ground, crying even harder than he was before, without control or reserve.

 

“Again?” Voldemort asks.

 

“Please,” Malfoy cries. “Please. No more. Please, my Lord…”

 

“Again?” Voldemort repeats with more emphasis. He wants Malfoy to say yes.

 

Malfoy shakes his head with rigor, sobbing and gasping.

 

“Perhaps you’d prefer Rowle to take over then? And Fenrir too? I suppose they would be far more… enjoyable… for you.”

 

Malfoy’s pale face floods with horror, looking nauseated. He glances at Rowle, standing off to the side, but quickly looks away as if he’s afraid of provoking him even just by looking at him.

 

“Again?” Voldemort asks.

 

…

 

Harry sits on the edge of his sleeping bag, still trembling as he burns a hole through the ground. Hermione and Ron sit on each side of him, and he could feel Hermione rubbing his arms and back. Ron is holding an empty glass of water, staring at him worriedly. Neither of them speak, understanding that Harry feels incapable of answering at the moment.

 

Harry knows he’s been screaming again. He’s been screaming in his sleep ever since Sirius’ death, because he watches him die at Bellatrix’s hand and watches him go into the veil, over and over, unable to save him or do anything to stop it all from happening. Now there is another death that haunts his dreams and his waking moments, Professor Dumbledore's, at the hands of Severus Snape. He sees a lot of terrible things through his mind connection with Voldemort, but he’s usually been able to clamp down on his reaction.

 

“You were… you were screaming, Harry,” Hermione is the one who breaks through the silence, saying the words as if she doesn’t know what else to say, but she’s hoping Harry will expand on the reason why himself. “Was it… was it about Sirius again? Or Dumbledore? But you were…” She pauses. Clearly he was saying something different this time. In his nightmares about Sirius, he yelled his name and yelled for Bellatrix to not do it and yelled for him to come back. In his nightmares about Dumbledore, he pleaded Snape to not do it and he ran and ran and ran to stop him, never reaching and being able to stop anything. “You kept saying, ‘stop it’ and ‘stop hurting him’.”

 

He feels sickened again, thinking of Malfoy, thinking of his screaming and crying and the pure terror and anguish in his battered face. He is being punished for not being the one to kill Dumbledore, it seems.

 

“Malfoy…” Harry manages to say.

 

“Was he hurting someone?” Ron asks, somewhat puzzled as if his name was the last thing he was expecting.

 

Harry shakes his head. “You-Know-Who…” he says. “He was... hurting Malfoy. They're holding him somewhere and hurting him."

 

“He could be planting false images again, Harry,” Hermione reasons, sympathy in her voice.

 

“Even if he isn’t, Harry, we’ve already got too much on our plate to worry about a git who willingly chose to work for a madman,” Ron inputs. Harry thinks of the Astronomy Tower, the fear and reluctance in Malfoy’s voice and how he seemed to be trying too hard to convince himself to kill, and how he lowered his wand before the Death-Eaters came, and thinks that he’s not entirely sure anymore if Malfoy ever willingly chose to work for a madman.

 

Hermione looks at Ron with a stern glare. She turns back to Harry when Ron looks sorry for his insensitivity. “You-Know-Who knows the kind of person you are. He knows you’d want to help anyone, even a schoolmate you hardly like. Harry, you can’t...you can't go. It might be a trap. Even if it's real, there i-isn't anything you can do about it.”

 

Harry knows Hermione’s right, despite the guilt and sorrow in her voice. At this point, he’s not entirely sure if they can afford to go and discover that it was just another trap that You-Know-Who was luring them to. There isn’t much of a choice here anymore to go after Malfoy. He tries to believe her, that it’s just false images being planted into his head again, just You-Know-Who trying to trick them and bring them to him…

 

But he stays up all night, thinking about it anyway.

 

He has never liked Malfoy in the least, but he doesn't hate him. Not anymore. In the last six years, he’d found him a nuisance, like a pest, annoying and irritating and at times downright infuriating when his verbal taunts went too far against himself and his friends. More often than not, however, they often gave it right back, so it wasn’t always too difficult to shut him up. He was also his competitor and a source of drive to push himself in Quidditch just to keep Malfoy’s mouth shut. He and his friends found him and the Slytherins to be a constant source of anxiety, not exactly of Malfoy—he was hardly worth being apprehensive of—but more of an intense need to maintain their pride and dignity simply on the principle of not giving Malfoy any sort of one-over against them.

 

But hatred?

 

Harry knows hatred and what it feels like. He hates You-Know-Who for killing his parents, for everything he put him and the people he loved through, and he hates Bellatrix Lestrange for killing his godfather, and he hates Severus Snape for killing Professor Dumbledore.

 

What he had always felt for Malfoy was not hatred. Not true hatred. The kind of hatred that sets his entire body on fire until it makes him ill, that makes him want to destroy everything he can get his hands on, ineffably violent and fiery, that he has so much of in him that he doesn't know what to do with it, how to hold it inside of himself without exploding to pieces.

 

Old childhood rivalry that had bordered on enmity aside, he'd certainly never wish such harm, particularly the kind of harm that can be caused by Voldemort, on Malfoy. Harry hated to see him the way he was in the vision. It was downright sickening and painful

 

…

 

It’s three weeks after that Severus is offered another reward for his services, for a compilation of errands and tasks successfully fulfilled.

 

He asks to see Draco again. He ventures to try his luck and requests for more than a singular visit, but the Dark Lord refuses, as Severus already expected.

 

He is blinded temporarily, darkness filling his vision. Goyle’s hesitant hand on his shoulder guiding him around makes him want to cast a burning spell over it, but he keeps himself reserved and in check against his temptations.

 

When they reach the door, the blindness spell is lifted.

 

Severus enters the cell, and the metal door is closed behind him. He takes his wand through the rectangular gap.

 

His gaze lands first on Draco, in the same position as the last time with his back to the room, but now clad in a large white shirt clearly not his own, that hangs off him like a coat hanger. His hair is grimy with dirt and his shirt has specks and slashes of dried blood. He walks forward and kneels before him, and from here, he can see his sleeping face, bruised and cut. Draco is holding on tightly to the tattered remains of the cloak Severus draped over him weeks ago, as if trying to soak in every bit of comfort and warm he could from it.

 

He sits behind him and waits for him to awaken, sensing that the boy needs all the rest he can.

 

The scent of the room is foul and pungent, so he casts a quick cleaning spell all over. He casts one over Draco too, along with a nourishing charm. He places some healing spells over him until the bruises and lacerations fade from his face and body, saving the deeper injuries related to bone and flesh for when he awakens.

 

And in the silence, he reasons to himself out of his own shame and inhumanity.

 

To let a young boy, his own godson, go through such suffering without lifting a finger seemed inhumane, indeed.

 

But the Dark Lord watches their every movement, and the Dark Mark binds them all to him, summoned without will whenever Lord Voldemort wishes. Even if they manage to free Draco, it won’t be long before he finds them and kills them all.

 

Yet, he isn’t sure what is better, to take a risk that is hardly in their favor if only to escape the inhumanity of turning a blind eye to a young boy’s horrid torment, no less than a mere child in their comparison, or to forsake him in such a manner to be abused and traumatized if only to save Draco’s life. The Dark Lord has, after all, commanded that the boy is not to die, if only because he enjoys the particular sort of power and leverage he has over a man, a father, over Lucius Malfoy, but even that is a tenuous decision that he might change his mind on at any point.

 

Is it really worth it then? Any of it?

 

“Severus?”

 

The haunted and exhausted voice cuts through his pondering.

 

When he glances down into the silver eyes that are just as haunted and exhausted, he wonders again just what the right thing is anymore.

 

“Dragon,” Severus says, soft in a way he hardly remembers being besides a time Draco could hardly remember, as an infant and a toddler.

 

When the thin, pale hand reaches for him tremulously from outside his own shredded cloak, Draco’s face crumpling in desperation and hurt but no tears coming, he can scarcely bring himself to refuse the need of a boy who has been faced with solitary confinement for a month, not receiving a single moment of any tenderness or solace.

 

Severus gathers Draco in his arms, gripping his biceps and lifting him up. Draco’s breath hitches in discomfort and pain as he does, due to the after-effects of the Crucio curse and perhaps others that left his muscles sore and aching. Severus lays him against himself, snow-blonde head over his shoulder. He flicks back his cloak, pulls out a vial from the inner pocket of it, and unclasps its neck to spread it out over the shivering boy.

 

He closes Draco’s fingers around the vial. Sensing the fatigue and frailty from the full weight of his body leaning into his side, Severus tugs his hand up to his lips.

 

“Drink,” he says quietly. “It should ease your discomfort and pain.”

 

Draco obliges in earnesty and eagerness, Severus’ grip over his steadying the tremors that might have made it difficult to hold it to his lips. He drinks it all down.

 

“Slowly,” Severus admonishes, not unkindly. He tightens his hand over Draco’s fingers in restraint.

 

When the potion is emptied, Severus places the hand down on Draco’s lap and releases his grasp. He takes the vacant vial and puts it aside.

 

“My… my parents,” Draco rasps out.

 

“They’re well, Draco,” Severus answers. “As well as they can be given the circumstances.”

 

It seems that’s about all the energy he has for a conversation. They lapse into silence again, and the silence lasts until Draco falls asleep again an hour later, feeble and exhausted from the stress on his body and the undernourishment. Nourishing spells can only go so far and are of no use in the long run.

 

Severus feels his chest and throat constrict, knowing that the boy will not wake up.

 

Not really. Not for a long time, whenever that may be.

 

“ _Alucinatio_ ,” Severus murmurs in a low voice, watching his godson’s troubled face slacken into peace.

 

They had no qualms on doing the most horrible thing one can do to someone, and if they can do one of the most horrible things there is to Draco, they can do anything. If there is nothing Severus can do, nothing else, nothing that wouldn't jeopardize Draco's own life and that of his family's, then he can at least do this.

 

“Your body will react to any severe anguish that is inflicted on it, but your mind will be elsewhere, dreaming of a life that consists of everything you’ve ever dreamed of in this life.”

 

Severus’ expression is blank and stoic, yet the burns of sorrow in his eyes and throat threaten his exterior.

 

“The spell will be broken only when anyone you’ve craved the affection of...” Severus loses his words for a moment when he thinks of the fact that there is no guarantee that any such thing will happen, and that it may be that the boy will never wake up. He’s thought about it all, every single merit and demerit, but he sees no point in his suffering a life that may or may not last until he finds his freedom. “...when anyone you’ve craved the affection of sheds their tears for you.”

 

His cheek falls to the side of the snowy hair, and the lead in his bones grow heavy in a way they hadn’t since Lily’s death. For years, the weight in his bones didn’t lessen, even as he had refused to let himself cave to its gravitation.

 

But perhaps the coming of a certain silver-eyed child was the only thing that’s ever eased it.

 

The tear falls from his eye, but he stares ahead and barely notices the trickle on his cheek.

 

“You will not suffer,” Severus says softly. The hair under his cheek soaks cold and wet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your thoughts!! 💙


	2. The Beautiful Green-eyed Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: some pieces of dialogue are taken directly from the book in the second scene.
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos, bookmarks and subscriptions! 💙 hope you all stay tuned and enjoy the story.

**SIX**

 

_Draco closes his eyes and tries to follow his sleeping father into slumber, settled against his chest in his study room, enveloped in the large arms wrapped around his small body. He's warm and content in the peaceful silence filling the room, besides the eventual clunking and clinking some rooms away, from the kitchens where the House Elves worked._

 

_His mother comes in some time later, just as he"s drifting off to sleep. She drapes a blanket over the two of them and presses a kiss to Draco's forehead, one hand on his cheek. Her thumb strokes over his chin. Draco smiles slightly in his light doze, half-asleep, soaking in all the love he can from his parents, from his father's hands on his back and his mother's fingers on his face._

 

_She leaves a moment later, just as the entire world falls away into his dreams._

 

**...**

**ELEVEN**

 

_"—Got the lot, dear—another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”_

 

_He is the most beautiful boy Draco has ever seen. He is._

 

_Even with his broken glasses and his old, oversized clothes and his rugged worn shoes, he is._

 

_Draco watches as Madam Malkin stands the beautiful green-eyed boy on another stool next to him. She pulls a long robe over him._

 

_“Hello,” Draco greets politely. The witch is pinning up his own black robes. “Hogwarts too?”_

 

_“Yes,” the boy says._

 

_“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the street looking at wands,” Draco says. "Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don’t see why first-years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”_

 

_The boy has an unreadable expression on his face, perhaps nearing distaste of some sort. Draco does not want the beautiful boy to feel distasteful of him._

 

_“Have you got your own broom?” Draco asks instead, attempting to take an interest in him. It isn't so much an attempt, he realizes, as he’d like to learn of the other boy. Still, he tries to keep his drawling voice casual and cool._

 

_“No.”_

 

_“Play Quidditch at all?”_

 

_“No.”_

 

_He isn't much of a talker, is he? Perhaps he feels shy and out of place. He doesn’t seem to know much about the magical world either. Draco hopes that doesn’t mean he’s muggleborn. Father always tell him that they’re beneath him, tells him of histories when muggles used to abuse and loathe and hunt down their kind, and now they’ve finally segregated the two worlds and wrestled back their rights and power. If the beautiful green-eyed boy turns out to be muggleborn, his father would make Draco stay away from him._

 

_Draco tries to fill the silence, hoping if he keeps talking, it might encourage the boy to open up and feel more comfortable._

 

_"I do—Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you’ll be in yet?"_

 

_The boy shakes his head._

 

_"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they? But I know I’ll be in Slytherin. All our family have been. Imagine being in Huffepuff. I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”_

 

_“Mmm…” the boy says. He sounds very disinterested in the conversation, or perhaps he's finding it difficult to have anything to say._

 

_Draco’s eye catches on a large, hairy man standing outside the window of the robe shop._

 

_Draco’s observed his father and learned that talking about people who are odd and beneath them is one of the quickest ways to bond with another. There is no better satisfaction, really. It’s quite an ego boost for both of the parties and extremely enjoyable to share tales of their...eccentricities. He’s heard a lot of funny things about the big man, a savage that lives in a hut! Gets drunk, tries to do magic and ends up setting fire to his bed. He wonders if the boy might find it as funny as Draco did. He’s very much fascinated to know of what his laugh might sound like._

 

_The boy waves at the large, hairy man outside with a small smile, indicating to a sort of friendship between them. It might not be a good idea, then, to mock the big man._

 

_Draco’s also learned from his mother that if someone sounds bored, you ought to shift your focus to them, ask them questions about themselves and let them speak more. Perhaps Draco has been speaking too much about himself. He hasn’t even asked the boy his name yet!_

 

_“What’s your name?” Draco asks._

 

_The witch is trying on another robe on the boy. He blinks and says, “Oh. Um. Harry. Harry Potter.”_

 

_“I’m Draco,” Draco introduces, puffing up haughtily as he raises his chin in pride of his name. He turns a little on the footstool when the witch lets go of him for a moment and holds out his hand. “Draco Malfoy.” He hopes the beautiful green-eyed boy—Harry—has heard of him and is impressed and excited to meet him._

 

_The boy nods politely, not impressed or excited. He doesn’t seem to have heard of the Malfoys, and Draco feels a dip of disappointment in his chest. He thinks it might just mean what he thinks it means, and he won’t get to be friends with Harry._

 

_Harry takes his hand, and his hand is gentle and tentative, and Draco doesn’t know if he wants to let go. “It’s… it’s nice to meet you.”_

 

_Draco smirks._

 

_“Say, would you mind if I ask about what kind your parents were?”_

 

_Harry’s forehead scrunches slightly. “They were a witch and a wizard, if that’s what you’re asking.” Draco almost smiles, deeply relieved, but he manages to maintain his composure outwardly. Harry doesn’t seem to know why it matters, however, which is alright, because Draco will teach him everything._

 

_Draco then realizes his usage of ‘were’._

 

_“Were?”_

 

_“They’re dead.”_

 

_“Oh, sorry,” Draco says uncomfortably. He remembers his mother, and how she deals with such a situation. Asking questions show sensitivity and concern. “How… how did it happen?”_

 

_Harry keeps silent, clearly not wanting to talk about it._

 

_“That’s alright,” Draco says. “You don’t have to tell me, of course. Who do you live with now?”_

 

_“Just some relatives,” Harry says. He notes the lack of attachment by the way he speaks of them, not saying ‘my’, but ‘some’._

 

_“Wizards?”_

 

_Harry shakes his head._

 

_“You don’t seem terribly fond of them, Potter,” Draco says. He likes the way his tongue shapes into his surname, the way it sounds in his voice. He doesn’t know why he likes Harry so much, but he does._

 

_Harry shrugs._

 

_“That’s you done, my dear,” Madam Malkin then interrupts. Draco’s heart sinks. He doesn’t want Harry to leave yet._

 

_Harry hops off the footstool._

 

_“It was nice talking to you, Potter,” Draco says, not merely polite for once, but meaning it far more than he ever thought he would whenever he says the words to anyone else, and he’s had to say it to a lot of people as a part of his good behavior. Mother and Father always tell him to say it. Although the boy hardly talked to him, Draco enjoyed his company anyway, quite a change from all his other friends who agree with everything he said even though they hardly cared or listened. “I will see you at Hogwarts, I suppose.”_

 

_Harry nods. “See you there.”_

 

_Harry wouldn’t know much about the Wizarding World if his relatives were muggles. How unfortunate, Draco thinks, that the poor boy had to live with them. On the other hand, it’s an opportunity for Draco to solidify a friendship. “Potter!” He waits for Harry to turn around. Harry does. “Once we get there, I’ll tell you whatever you need to know. I think you might like Quidditch, you know, ‘cause you get to fly on brooms when you play.”_

 

_Harry pauses for a moment, only looking at him._

 

_He smiles at him then, the first time he does, and Draco's chest feels knocked out of air when he does, for some reason._

 

_He hopes that it’s not only manners that compelled Harry to smile at him in such a way, like it was for Draco with all the adults and his friends from his parent’s friends’ families, that it means he enjoyed Draco’s company too._

 

_And then Harry turns around, and he’s gone._

 

_Draco thinks about him for the entirety of the day._

 

**...**

 

_Draco catches a compartment with Crabbe and Goyle first before coming right back out._

 

_“Malfoy, where are you goi—"_

 

_The train on the 9 ¾ platform was quickly growing crowded as people bustled in rapidly, suitcases rolling behind them. It makes Draco so very irritable as he shoves through people, shamelessly elbowing anyone he could as he moves compartment to compartment._

 

_He finds Harry nearly seven compartments down his own, sitting alone._

 

_“Potter?” Draco says, sounding somewhat breathless and perhaps not only due to the exertion of pushing through a crowd. He has shaped his voice to sound pleasantly surprised._

 

_Harry straightens at the sight of him, appearing to be surprised by him too._

 

_“I saw you through the window. Why are you sitting alone?”_

 

_Harry shrugs. “I don’t really know anyone here.” Draco likes being the only one Harry knows so far._

 

_“Come sit with me,” Draco says. He holds out his hand._

 

_Harry looks down at it, as if not sure what he’s supposed to be doing._

 

_“Come on, Potter. We haven’t got all day, you know,” Draco insists, shaking his hand in emphasis to take it._

 

_Draco knows boys didn’t hold hands, but he wants to hold Harry’s hand, so Draco reaches forward and grabs Harry’s hand, his own clasping around it. Besides, Harry might get lost in the crowd if he doesn’t, so it’s really important that Draco does. Draco pulls him to his feet, pulls him out into the crowd of bustling people in the hall of the train._

 

_“My stuff—" Harry starts hesitantly, pushing his rounded glasses up his nose with a few fingers as they skew slightly. Draco doesn’t stop, somewhat exhilarated at the thought of being Harry’s friend, of sitting with him in a train compartment and talking to him and laughing with him._

 

_“We’ll get them later, Potter! Stop worrying.” Draco grips his hand tightly and forces them through. “Out of the way!”_

 

_…_

 

_“Who’s this?” Crabbe asks._

 

_“Harry Potter,” Draco answers shortly. He sits down on the booth, leaving Harry space to sit beside him. Harry does, sliding in next to him. “This is Crabbe, and Goyle.” He hardly cares to introduce them, really, and it sounds like it too._

 

_“So, what are you?” Goyle asks. “Pureblood? Half-blood?”_

 

_Harry doesn’t seem to understand, and does say as much. “I’m not sure I know what that is."_

 

_Goyle’s eyebrows raise up to his hairline, and then he sniggers mockingly. “You don’t know what sort you are, then?”_

 

 _“Shut up, Goyle,” Draco snaps. He turns to Harry and explains. “Purebloods are wizards that have only had a magical bloodline through every generation, uninterrupted and unmixed.  There are only a few of such families, like mine, the Malfoys._ _Half-bloods, on the other hand, have had their bloodlines contaminated—" Harry raises an eyebrow at the word. Draco realizes Harry might be half-blood. “They’ve had muggles or muggleborns, I mean. A parent or a grandparent, perhaps. One parent or grandparent might be pureblood or half-blood and the other a muggleborn.”_

 

_“But why does it matter, really?” Harry questions, sounding exasperated and puzzled. “It’s all just blood, isn’t it? What does it matter if someone has non-magical parents?”_

 

_Crabbe and Goyle share a look._

 

_“Muggleborns shouldn’t be living with wizards,” Crabbe is the one who answers. “They’re very different from us, and inferior too, so they really ought to keep it in the old wizarding families. There should be segregation, at the very least, between them and us, wouldn’t you say, Malfoy?”_

 

_Harry’s staring at him like he’s seeing something very strange and idiotic. Draco supposes Harry’s just not ready to understand yet. He’ll make him one day, but he senses that trying to force his beliefs on him right now would be futile and only drive him away._

 

_“Nevermind that,” Draco dismisses with a wave as if it’s nothing important. “Potter—"_

 

_In that moment, a woman slides back the door of their compartment, smiling heartily._

 

_“Anything off the carts, boys?”_

 

_Draco takes some treacle tarts, Chocolate Frogs and Choco Balls and pays in Galleons. “Potter?”_

 

_Harry peers into the carts, looking very much fascinated by the colorful array of sweets, but he doesn’t reach for anything. Crabbe and Goyle are already piling up the candies between themselves._

 

_“Well? Do you want anything from the carts?” Draco asks Harry._

 

_“Not really, no,” Harry says. The expression on his face tells Draco that he does, but for whatever reason, won’t say so._

 

_The woman waits patiently. Someone yells a few compartments up to hurry up with the candy cart._

 

_Draco takes two handfuls of everything, counts down the price and pays in more Sickles and Galleons._

 

_“Thank you,” Draco says, knowing it sounds more habitual than anything. The woman smiles again, wishes them a good day and rolls the cart back out of the compartment, sliding it shut._

 

_Draco places all the candies between himself and Harry, picks out a box of Choco Balls, tears them open and begins eating them. He sees that Harry isn’t taking anything, instead opting to dig out a bag of his own homemade food._

 

_“Potter, take something,” Draco demands. Harry looks at him in surprise. He nods down at the pile between them._

 

_Harry frowns. “They’re yours, aren’t they?”_

 

 _“I got enough for the both of us, didn’t I?” Draco rolls his eyes. Perfect as he is, Harry is somewhat dense too, isn't he? Does Draco_ look _like he can eat so much? He isn't Crabbe or Goyle, who are currently inhaling all their food._

 

 _“You never buy_ us _food, Malfoy,” Crabbe points out, narrowing his eyes._

 

_Draco shrugs carelessly. “You already eat enough, don’t you? Think I’m doing your fat arse a favor, really,” he sneers._

 

_Crabbe flushes with embarrassment and hunches slightly. Draco smirks, glancing over at Harry to see if he finds it funny._

 

_“Treat all your friends like that, Malfoy?” Harry says, instead, coldly. Draco's mind briefly gets a little stuck on the sound of his surname in his voice, the first time he’s heard it since they’ve met. “‘Cause if you do, I’d really rather not be one of them.”_

 

_Harry’s eyes are flat as they return his gaze for a hot minute. When the words register, Draco’s gut burns with a mix of rejection and anger, for nobody had dared speak to him in such a way up until now, as well as embarrassment and shame to think Draco’s acting in a way Harry doesn’t like. He can’t decide if he wants to tell Harry off or not, but he thinks if he does now, Harry’s going to not like him. Draco’s somewhat upset to realize that he’s not sure, even now, whether or not Harry finds him a friend._

 

_Draco pinches his lips. He takes a handful of treats from between Harry and himself and leans over to throw it lightly onto Crabbe and Goyle’s begrudgingly as an olive branch. “There. Happy?”_

 

_Crabbe and Goyle’s eyes light up at the addition, Crabbe’s hurt and embarrassment forgotten, and they both return to trying to finish everything within the span of a minute. Harry looks back ahead, back down to his bag of homemade, muggle-made, pasties._

 

_And then Draco reaches for a Chocolate Frog, picks it up and holds it out for Harry to take, hoping it can confirm that they’re alright. Harry takes it, then reaches into his bag of pasties, takes one out and offers, “Have some of my pasties.”_

 

_“Oh, no,” Draco says, somewhat lamely._

 

_Harry sighs, like Draco made a mistake presuming that he was asking. “Honestly, just shut up and take it, would you, Malfoy?”_

 

_Draco’s conflicted between annoyance at his impertinence and the sound of his own surname again in Harry’s voice, and perhaps the strange and troubling idea that he doesn’t quite loathe being bossed around by Harry Potter as much as he should._

 

_It’s muggle-made, isn’t it? Father always tells Draco never to use anything made by Muggles. Harry is looking at him expectantly though, a sort of stubbornness that makes Draco feel as if he’d sit there and hold out the bloody pasty forever if he had to._

 

_Draco takes it hesitantly._

 

_“It won’t very well bite you now, will it? Quite the way other around,” Harry teases playfully. Draco smirks a little, only a little. The boy seems to be opening up to him, and Draco likes it already._

 

_Draco eats it, suppressing the sense that he’s doing something wrong by it. It tastes good though, almost as good as Dobby and Sneezy's cooking._

 

_“It’s alright,” Draco says. He nods in approval, contemplates reaching for another, but restrains himself. Harry offers a few to Crabbe and Goyle out of politeness and good manners, who accept eagerly. Crabbe seems to have been won over, smiling at Harry, who reciprocates awkwardly. Harry then puts the open paperbag between himself and Draco, so that he can take another if he wanted to._

 

_Draco tells him about Hogwarts, whatever he knows, some of which Harry was already informed of by his hairy savage friend and some of which is entirely new to him. He finds it somewhat thrilling to be able to introduce Harry to new things, to teach him about a whole world he knows nothing of. He explains the Houses, the subjects at Hogwarts, tells him about his godfather who teaches Potions there, and then goes on to discuss what he’s heard about the Professors. The Transfiguration Professor is a woman named McGonagall (quite a mouthful, that name), the Charms Professor is a goblin, or a dwarf maybe, Draco can’t remember, and he’s heard that the Defence Against the Dark Arts position is cursed because the DADA teachers never last longer than a year. They always end up getting sacked or quitting themselves._

 

_Draco gives Harry more of his treats. They eat Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor jellybeans, and when Draco gets the ear-wax flavored one, he nearly vomits, but whatever his twisted and miserable expression is, it makes Harry laugh._

 

_The sound makes his heart flip in a strange sort of way._

 

_Harry gets a sardine-flavored one some time after, so then it’s Draco’s turn to laugh at him when he lurches forward and sputters and spits it out, Crabbe and Goyle ducking to save themselves._

 

_They share candy and they laugh together and Draco doesn’t remember ever feeling this carefree and entertained._

 

_Some time before the train will reach Hogwarts and come to a stop, Harry says, “Call me Harry.”_

 

_He’s grinning widely, cheeks flushed with how hard he laughed when Draco tried to roar like a tiger by the sound-producing sweets and ended up meowing. He’s fairly certain that something’s wrong with the candy._

 

_Draco stops still for a moment, his chest feeling strange and tight, a fluttering sort of feeling like a butterfly’s wings._

 

_“Call.... call me Draco too, then,” Draco reciprocates, grinning back just as wide._

 

_..._

 

_Draco sits at the Slytherin table, just as he had envisioned the entire time._

 

 _He hadn't envisioned Harry, however. He_ _hadn't envisioned a friend that liked him for more than his status and wealth. He hadn't envisioned feeling restless and agitated as he wondered where Harry would end up (hopefully at Draco’s side), hadn't envisioned leaning forward on the edge of his seat when Harry’s name is called._

 

_“Harry James Potter!”_

 

_Draco stops breathing, even as he tries to control himself. Harry stands up across the room, where he sat with Draco before he got sorted, glancing at him for a moment to share an apprehensive look with him. Draco shoots him a small, tentative half-smile, almost certain that he’s even more nervous than Harry._

 

_Harry walks up the stage and sits on the stool. The Sorting Hat is placed on his head by Professor McGonagall, covering his face._

 

_Slytherin, Slytherin, let it be Slytherin, come on—_

 

_It takes too long, the Sorting Hat silent and leaving Draco on edge, the anticipation quickly becoming irritation. Why won't the stupid old hat talk already?_

 

_"Gryffindor!"_

 

_Draco's heart sinks. The Gryffindor table explodes into cheerful applause at the addition of another member. The Sorting Hat is removed from Harry's head. He hops off the stool and he meets Draco's eyes across the room for a moment, half-smiling tightly at him with a tinge of remorse, as he makes their way over to the people of his House._

 

_..._

 

_They stand in the Halls on the morning of their first day at Hogwarts, which Draco must say, he's definitely expected far better. It is no match for Durmstrang at all, but he supposes he should have known. He'd only agreed to come here on his mother's insistence, or else, even his father wanted him to go to one of the best schools there is. The only saving grace of this terrible school is Harry._

 

_"Come on with me, Harry," Draco urges. He takes Harry's hand, who lets him, but he's pulled back when Draco tries to tug him away from that ratty red-headed Weasel beside him. Harry seems to have mistaken that he's inviting both of them, however, tugging back at Weasel._

 

_"Harry, no," Weasel is muttering, though, gripping Harry by his elbow. "Remember what I told you? He's a Malfoy and a—"_

 

_"Ron, it's alright—"_

 

 _"Ron_ Weasley _, I presume?" Draco sneers. He'll show the boy his place right now. How_ dare _he try to turn Harry against him? "Red hair, freckles, hand-me-downs and more siblings than your parents can afford?"_

 

_"Draco, stop—"_

 

 _"Do tell me, Weasel, how_ do _you all fit into that tiny little box you call a ho—"_

 

_"Shut up, Draco," Harry hisses. "You can't speak to him like that!"_

 

 _Draco feels a flush of anger and embarrassment and hurt in his chest. Harry is against him, telling_ Draco _to shut up for bloody Ron Weasley. He's already lost him, hasn't he then? He's never had a friend so real to him before, and Harry's already found someone else, someone he likes better, a bloody_ Weasley _no less who is definitely not better than a Malfoy, but Harry's chosen him and how can he have chosen a bloody_ Weasley _of all people over_ him _?_

 

 _"Ditching me now that you've found yourself another friend, I see," Draco says. He straightens, raising his chin. "Whatever, Potter. I should have exp—" He's ready to say something mean and crass, show him that he doesn't care and he's not hurt, shouldn't have trusted him knowing he was raised by filthy_ Muggles, _of course he wouldn't have any sense of principle and va—_

 

 _Harry rolls his eyes. "Oh, don't be overdramatic, Draco. You might not be aware of this, but people_ can _have more than one friend."_

 

_"You'll soon come to regret it, Potter, when you'll realize that you won't find anyone better,"  Draco sneers, turns and walks away, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle._

 

_…_

 

_He sees Harry glance over at him throughout their classes together. Draco spends much of his time pretending he isn't watching him from his peripheral vision._

 

_Harry will realize it soon, that Draco's far better than Ron, and he'll come back to him and apologize for choosing the Weasel over him. Draco only has to be patient. He waits every class for Harry to come over and sit with him, and Draco will happily shove Crabbe or Goyle off the chair for him when he does._

 

_But Harry never does._

 

_By the end of it, when they're done with all their classes for the day, he's certain that Harry doesn't want to be his friend anymore._

 

_Draco tells Crabbe and Goyle off for constantly trailing him, even though he really prefers having them there most of the time as security and company. Right now, though, he only wants to be alone. He hurls stones into the lake angrily, as hard as he could, thinking and thinking and thinking._

 

_Thinking about stupid, beautiful, green-eyed Harry and his stupid broom and his stupid rounded glasses and his stupid grin, and how he gave him false hopes about having a real friend, a friend he liked and liked him back, and not because of his wealth or his status or his family, but just because he's Draco and he told him everything he knew about Hogwarts and made him laugh in a train._

 

_He thinks of Harry's hand in his own, then, and his smile and his laugh again, and sharing candies and pastries, with him, and him leaning close to Draco beside him before either of them were Sorted._

 

_And then he thinks about Harry defending Weasel and essentially making it clear just who he wants to be with. He thinks about Harry telling him to shut up, and not in an endearing way either like in the train when he wanted Draco to have his pasties, and the fact that he obviously doesn't care to be friends with Draco because if he did, he would have tried, wouldn't he have? But he didn't. He likes that stupid Weasley boy and his stupid brothers more, and now he's also hanging around that buck-toothed, bushy-haired, overbearingly know-it-all mudblood girl, Hermione Granger! And that dimwit with the most awful surname Draco has ever heard, Neville Longbottom. Seems to Draco that Harry would prefer just about anyone over him. Is it just because they share his House?_

 

_Is it because he doesn't like the way Draco is mean sometimes, like to the Weasley boy? He tried to turn Harry against him, so he had a right, didn't he?_

 

_He thinks of Harry standing up for Crabbe, telling him he'd rather not be friends with Draco if that's how he treats all his friends. Doesn't Harry know that Draco would never treat him that way, though? Harry is different and special. Draco has never liked anyone the way he liked Harry. Everyone else is annoying and stupid, and as his father had explained to him, everyone else is beneath him, because he is a Malfoy, first and foremost, a pureblood second, and a wizard third._

 

_He plopped down on the forage, glaring down at the lake, fists clenching around glass blades and tugging._

 

_Doesn't matter anymore, does it, though? His friendship with Harry is over, it seems. Whatever. Draco's going to make him regret it, and his friends too, and it won't be because he knows he won't have Harry's attention anymore and it's the only way to force him to see Draco, no. Obviously not. He's just going to remind Harry everyday that he did a bad thing by playing Draco like that._

 

_He senses someone sit beside him. Probably Crabbe, who always seems to want to stitch his and Draco's pockets together. Might be Goyle too, who isn't as clingy, but likes to be in his shadow for the benefits he brings. The oafs could hardly pass a class without Draco's help, anyway._

 

_"Didn't I tell you to leave me be?" Draco snaps irritably._

 

_"Did you now?"_

 

_That's not Crabbe or Goyle._

 

_Draco glances up and over, finding green eyes. "What are you doing here, Potter? Don't you have your little nitwit friends to go back to?"_

 

 _"Well, they aren't the_ _only_ _nitwit friends I have, you see."_

 

_Draco narrows his eyes. Why does he care how many nitwit friends Harry has?_

 

_"Good for you. Is that all?" Draco sneers._

 

_Harry stares at him for a long moment, amused and as if he's waiting for something._

 

_And then it sinks in._

 

 _Draco gapes. "_ I'm _not a nitwit, you dolt!"_

 

 _Harry laughs, throwing his head back, and Draco's already finding himself weak, already feeling his anger and hurt slipping away from him and leaving behind that flush of warmth and that strange flutter in his chest. No. No. Draco will_ not _succumb to this, he will stay mad and he will—_

 

_And then Harry's leaning against him, shoulder against his shoulder, his grin softening into a small smile._

 

_"Why do you have to have other friends?" Draco finds himself blurting out, his chest aching and tight. He swallows, feeling exposed and raw and vulnerable and wishing he could stop, but he couldn't. "Why do you have to be anybody else's friend? You're mine. Isn't that enough?"_

 

_Harry raises an eyebrow. Draco knows he sounds like a jealous wife, but he can't help it. He can't help but feel that if he lets Harry go and stay with all those other people he's going to spend all his time with, he's going to grow to like them more than he likes Draco, who doesn't really have anyone, not really, because Crabbe and Goyle are only paid to be his friends and they hardly give a damn about him besides for his name, fame and money, and Harry feels like the only real and genuine friend he has, and if he forgets Draco, then what is he going to do? He already knows it's going to hurt in a way that he's never been hurt before, already knows it's going to last years and years and years._

 

_"I don't know what they teach you about friendships in your Socializing For Filthy Rich and Spoiled Prats 101 classes, Draco—"_

 

_Draco rolls his eyes. "We don't have any such classes—"_

 

_"But it really is possible for me to keep my friendship with all of you. You're my first friend here, Draco, and I'm not going to ditch you for anyone. But I'm also not going to ditch them for you."_

 

_Draco likes half of that speech, and doesn't know how to feel about the other. How does Harry think this is going to work?_

 

 _"You can't spend all your time with them_ and _me," Draco says. "Malfoys and Weasleys have quite a history, in particular. And well, you're the only Gryffindor I can actually tolerate. I won't get along with them, with any of them, you know."_

 

_"Maybe. Maybe not. But well, Mione's suggested I make a schedule, so…"_

 

_A schedule, Granger? Really? "Well, that doesn't sound like her at all, does it," Draco drawls._

 

_Harry laughs. "I know. It sounds a little strange, but I think it could work."_

 

_Draco would rather Harry ditch them and spend all his time with him, but he's beginning to grow resigned and accepting of the fact that Harry's never going to do wrong by any of them._

 

_"Fine," Draco says._

 

_Harry nods._

 

_"And one more thing. I won't tolerate you being rude to any of my other friends, no matter how you feel about them, you understand? Likewise, they aren't allowed to speak badly of you either, so I suggest you all arrange a truce and keep civil."_

 

_That sounds borderline horrific. He can't even express his hatred and annoyance of them?_

 

_Harry's solemn gaze is on him. Draco sighs and slumps slightly._

 

 _"It's going to be difficult," Draco says, resigned and begrudging. He nearly goes on to say_ , considering how annoying they are _, but stops himself in time. "But I will, for you, Harry."_

 

Anything for you.

 

_Harry grins at him. And Draco grins back. And it's almost worth it, the pain of trying not to be an arse to all those Gryffindork nincompoops._

 

_When Harry's hand slips into his, warm and gentle as fingers curl around the back of it, Draco decides that it's definitely worth it if he gets to keep Harry._

 

_..._

 

**TWELVE**

 

 _"Are you_ ever _going to get along with Ron and 'Mione?"_

 

_They sat on the edge of the lake, where Harry held his hand nearly a year go and told him he wouldn't leave him for anyone. Harry has his Potions essay on the formation of healing draughts placed on top of his book that he'll never bother to read, Draco holding his own and reading through it._

 

_"You and 'Mione could be a force, you know."_

 

_"We made a truce for your sake, didn't we, Harry?" Draco responds, not looking up from the book. "We're not capable of more."_

 

_Harry sighs, shaking his head. "Gets a little hard sometimes is all, managing it."_

 

_Draco imagines it does. He's not particularly pleased about it either, having to wait hours and hours for his turn. There are days he comes over and sits at their arranged spots as soon as classes end, but Harry doesn't know that, and he's not ever going to know._

 

_Harry's surprisingly managed quite well, though, giving all of them his time. He's very loved and some days Draco envies that, not being as loved by anyone outside of his parents and Severus, but he also understands why Harry's so loved. Draco feels the same way, after all._

 

_"So, care to tell me why your godfather is suddenly almost...decent...to me?" Harry asks. "I'm a little scared, to be honest."_

 

_Draco smirks._

 

_Severus, Professor Snape to most, generally dislikes all the Gryffindors, but has particularly had it out for Harry since he's seen him. Draco doesn't entirely understand it, but he's made Harry quite miserable over the year, constantly giving him detention and unwarranted jibes and insults. Draco spent much of last year trying to talk him out of it, but it's almost as if Severus can't control himself when it comes to putting them down._

 

_Over the summer though, he's gotten some blackmail material._

 

_Draco closes his book, grinning widely. He puts it down and shuffles closer to Harry._

 

_"You can't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you, do you understand, Harry?"_

 

_Harry's eyes are wide with intrigue and curiosity. He nods. "Okay. Yeah."_

 

_"Not even your other friends!" Draco insists, pointing a finger at him. "I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone, but you're not anyone, so I'm only telling you."_

 

_Harry nods seriously._

 

_Draco looks around, behind him, ensuring nobody can hear. He looks back to Harry._

 

_"Have you heard of Puffskeins?"_

 

_Harry's forehead furrows. "I don't think so."_

 

 _Draco sighs. "Honestly, Harry, have you_ ever _even opened your books?"_

 

_He digs into his bag for the Magical Creatures book, flips over a few pages, and then stops on a page that has a moving image of a small creature covered in soft fur, round like a ball, with big beady eyes peering through the fluff and a small, circular black nose._

 

 _"These. The man is_ obsessed _with them. I went over to his house so he could tutor me ahead of the class in Potions and found like twenty of them hidden in a room."_

 

_Harry squints at him. "You're yanking my wand, aren't you?"_

 

_"I'm not joking," Draco sniggers. "I know it's hard to believe, but I swear on my life it's true. So in short, I've blackmailed him into being more civil with you, and even your… other Gryffindork friends." He admits the last part begrudgingly._

 

_Harry stares at him, a smile threatening to break out on his lips, but he's trying to hold it back, probably not wanting to offend Draco by laughing at his beloved godfather, but Draco's lips break out into a grin too, and then Harry's does too, and they both snort gracelessly like a bunch of pigs, cheeks tight and high and lips pressed together. By the next few seconds, they're laughing, Harry guffawing and tearing up, folded over until he's tipping over and falling to the grass, shoulders shaking  as he clutches at his stomach, not able to make a sound as he laughs and laughs and laughs._

 

_Draco, having already laughed his guts out over the summer (the first time being in Severus' presence, who stared ahead flatly as he waited for him to stop laughing), is more in control of himself, but he's laughing too, watching Harry rolling on the ground in his tearful mirth, feeling a twist in his swollen heart at the sight of him._

 

_…_

 

_Draco makes his father buy brooms for his entire Slytherin Quidditch team, and one for Harry too._

 

_Harry's grateful and excited grin and the tight hug he gets in reaction are the things that keep him awake the entirety of that night._

 

_…_

 

**THIRTEEN**

 

_In the Great Hall, where dinner is being served to all students, Draco watches Harry laugh and talk to Granger and Weasley. Harry's green eyes catch his silver ones, a residual grin still on his lips from whatever he was laughing about before with his housemates. His mouth softens into a smile at him. Draco smiles back._

 

_Harry's hair is a tousled, raven mess. Draco knows he's going to make fun of it, mostly in vengeance for Harry making fun of his own gelled and slicked back hair for the past two years, telling him he looked like a Dracula, and it went with his name too, how funny (Draco rolled his eyes so hard at that one it hurt his brain), and now Draco gets to ask him if there's a squirrel living in his hair now._

 

_Secretly though, Draco finds that he likes the way it looks on him. He looks stunning, all pink-cheeked and emerald eyes and wild, untamed hair. Draco's not sure why he keeps thinking that, not sure if boys think other boys are beautiful or stunning, but he thinks Harry is anyway. Harry's always been._

 

_…_

 

_Draco befriends Blaise and Pansy, becoming a group of five along with Crabbe and Goyle. He enjoys their company a lot._

 

_It's from Blaise that he learns of the concept of boys being in love with boys, who's very learned when it comes to the world. Compared to Draco who's been quite sheltered, Blaise has had a hard life that's forced him out of the bubble of his home and learn a lot of things most people would have never really thought of or know about, like, homosexuality, did he say? He hadn't ever thought that was possible, boys being in love with boys, but the idea fascinated him._

 

_It's after six days and nights of pondering over it, thinking of Harry's green eyes and his rumpled hair and the skin of his hands, that he understands._

 

_He's been in love with Harry James Potter since the moment he saw him._

 

_..._

 

_Outside of Honeydukes, after sharing candies and Butterbeers, they're so full they can hardly move, so they lie in the snow and make snow angels next to each other, watching their thoughts play out on grey winter skies in silence._

 

_"I can tell Weaslette's got a crush on you," Draco says. "She's been ogling at you since she's come here."_

 

_"She's got a name, Draco. Use it," Harry responds dryly. "And I'm aware."_

 

_"But?"_

 

 _Harry pauses. "I just… don't see her that way. You know?" He shrugs. "Besides, she's Ron's_ sister _. It'd be very strange, wouldn't it be?"_

 

_Draco internally whoops with joy. "Yes. Totally."_

 

_"You sounded quite eager there, Draco," Harry huffs slightly, sounding a little amused. Draco freezes, his body growing colder under all the layers of warmth. Harry wouldn't know, would he? Harry can't possibly—_

 

_Harry pushes up on his elbows and rolls over, so he's now on his stomach, shoulders hitched up as he leans on his elbows, looking down at Draco through green eyes that look even greener against the grey of the winter. He's pale and pink-cheeked in the frosty weather, ears covered beneath a red beanie hat and the rest of him cloaked in a thick black coat and black trousers._

 

_Draco swallows hard as he stares up at Harry. Stunning as always, since day one, changing as he grows but the fact of his beauty never-changing. It seems to last forever, Harry's face dangling over his, and Draco's considering that if they're already so close, then perhaps he should just go all the way and kiss him already, the way he aches to. He's not the Gryffindor here though, he then thinks._

 

_And then Harry's face breaks out into a grin, and after only a split-second of Draco's puzzlement, Draco feels ice cold down his neck that rattles through his skin and flesh, a loud gasp escaping him at the abrupt change in his body temperature from warm to frigid._

 

_"Harry!" he yells, angry and indignant, when he recovers. He rolls to his palms and knees and stomps up to his feet, Harry already scrambled up to a stand, laughing as he runs. Draco runs after him, only pausing for a short second to ball up snow in his gloved hands, before straightening and chasing after Harry with an arm pulled back, hurtling the snowball through the air to hit a still laughing Harry on the cheek. "Fuck you, you numpty!"_

 

_Harry's laugh dies, but he's still grinning like a madman. Draco bends down to ball up more snow, Harry hastening to form his own ammo, and then they shoot up to their feet nearly at the same time and hurl at each other._

 

_And that's how a snowball fight started, lasting nearly twenty whole minutes. By the end of it, they're both laughing and gasping, bent over. In a last attempt to establish victory, Harry tackles Draco to the snow-coated ground, pinning his flailing arms down, both of them still sniggering and exhilarated._

 

_And right then, with their faces so close, Draco thinks of kissing him again, grin dying out on his lips as he realizes their close proximity, Harry on top of him. His gaze falls to Harry's pink mouth, soft and glistening above him._

 

_Harry rolls off of him, his own grin gone, dropping down beside him on his back._

 

_Draco glances sideways at him to find him looking very much lost all of a sudden._

 

 ...

 

**FIFTEEN**

 

_They kiss for the first time under the stars, the two of them lying together in the centre of the expanse of the Quidditch pitch, their heads leaning close together, warm bodies just as close._

_Fingers brush under Draco's chin, tentatively guiding his head to face Harry. Their cheeks are pressing into the grass as they look at each other, and the gentle, hesitant hands move up to carefully frame his face. Draco doesn't dare move, doesn't even dare breathe, so still he can't even feel his chest rise and fall. He only sees nervous and achingly tender green eyes staring back at him, raw and open._

_When Harry's soft lips meet Draco's in the softest kiss, all the air from the field leave his lungs, exhaling sharply through his nose._

_And then his heart is soaring, much like flying on a broom in the fast wind of an open field. Harry's lips stretch into a smile against Draco's when he kisses him too, mellow and chaste._

 


	3. Malfoy Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a scene from the chapter of Malfoy Manor in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, rewritten with modified dialogues and partially based on both the movie and books. Nothing is mine except my writing.
> 
> I'm shit at disclaimers sorry
> 
> Warning for reference to past rape/non-con and hints of victim-shaming. Please, please turn back if this is a trigger.

Harry’s muscles are rigid and tense as Narcissa Malfoy scrutinizes his face closely. He can hardly see her through his swollen eyes, but he maintains eye-contact with her, sensing that he just might give himself away by trying to avoid her gaze.

 

She looks tired and unkempt under the icy blankness of her expression, her dark eyes sinking into her face, the sallow skin around it half-heartedly concealed.

 

Harry’s gut is still twisting in guilt and anger at himself, at his idiocy. In their hunt for the Horcruxes, he had said the name. He had said Voldemort’s name out loud, even when he’d been told so many times not to by Ron and Hermione. The Sneakoscope lit up and spun, and there came the Death-Eaters. Before they captured them, however, Hermione had the quick thinking to cast a stinging hex that disfigured his face.

 

Scabior hands Narcissa the Blackthorn Wand that he snatched from Harry’s pocket. She raises her eyebrows in surprise.

 

Harry sees the moment of contemplation on her face. She flicks her gaze towards Scabior in a thoughtful, cunning glance, as if she’s plotting a scheme or an idea occurred to her.

 

Narcissa stands up. “Bring them in,” she says coldly, and then turns to walk into the Manor.

 

Harry is forced to stagger sideways as he is dragged over. He sees Ron and Hermione from his peripheral vision, locked in a chokehold by the large werewolf. Ron’s face is bruised by the blows from Greyback’s fists. Hermione’s eyes are flooded with fear as Greyback sniffs her hair suggestively.

 

Ron notices, and through the arm around his throat cutting out his air partially, manages to snarl out a, “Stop sniffing her, you fucking creepy bastard!”

 

The chokehold must have tightened momentarily, because Ron sputters and chokes and coughs hard.

 

“It’s alright,” Hermione whispers tremulously to Ron. She swallows. “Please, just—just don’t say anything.”

 

Harry’s gut clenches, a burn of protectiveness and nauseating terror rushing through him for his friends. He tries to push the overwhelming waves of emotion aside and _think_ of a way to get them out of this.

 

He is kicked in the back of his knees, leaving him no choice but to kneel.

 

“What is this?” They hear the dreadfully familiar voice of Lucius Malfoy drawl. Harry’s insides clenched in anxiety, mind desperately scrabbling to search for an escape plan and finding none.

 

Narcissa halts her steps, turns around and faces them.

 

“If you want to know that this is Harry Potter,” she says, her gaze hard and frigid. “then bring my son, Draco, here.”

 

“You think us to be fools, do you, Narcissa?” Greyback spits out her name.

 

“He went to school with Harry Potter for six years,” Narcissa continues calmly. “If anyone will know, it’s him.”

 

“Your son can hardly _know_ what’s happening around him these days,” Greyback shoots back sarcastically. “I doubt he will be able to know whether this is the Potter boy or not.”

 

Harry thinks of the vision he had nearly two months ago, and realizes that the more he hears their conversation, the more it is beginning to seem likely that it wasn’t a false image he saw, but a very real occurrence.

 

Malfoy isn’t found in his home, when it's meant to be spring break, and that can only mean that he is elsewhere, perhaps in that bare and empty room smelling of blood and vomit and sweat where he cried and screamed, and Harry’s stomach is queasy and tangled up all over again at the thought.

 

Narcissa keeps her gaunt face stoic. Lucius stands beside her, hands clasped over his cane, his pale face, even paler than normal if possible, and sunken eyes matching his wife’s.

 

“Do tell, Fenrir,” Narcissa challenges. “If you have any other brilliant ideas in mind at the moment. Perhaps you can identify him yourself, despite hardly knowing the face of Harry Potter to compare it with?”

 

“We’re already certain this is Harry Potter, ma’am,” Scabior responds.

 

“Call the Dark Lord over then,” Lucius goads. “I’m sure he will be thrilled to be summoned for nothing should it turn out that this is not the Potter boy after all. Go on.”

 

The other Death-Eaters seem to have grown uncertain at the Malfoys’ words.

 

They glance at one another indecisively. The thought of the punishment that lay ahead if they risk pointlessly summoning Voldemort seems to have them petrified, perhaps petrified enough to oblige the Malfoys, who are clearly only trying to manipulate them and yet effectively making their suggestion seem like the only best option.

 

“Your boy is utterly useless at the moment, I tell you. But fine.” Greyback grins, canines in full display, cocking his head. “I’ll bite.”

 

**…**

 

They take their wands from them, both hers and Lucius’, as a precaution that they will not try anything ‘stupid’. Narcissa wishes it didn’t occur to them to, somehow, because perhaps then she could simply take her son and disappear. It is a visceral and deep craving to do so, against all logic and reasoning.

 

Narcissa’s hand shakily clambers to clutch Lucius’ hand, who reciprocates her grip in kind, their tangled hands hidden between the proximity of their bodies, as Rowle and Yaxley Apparate away to bring their son over. Her heart is hammering so painfully in her sternum that she thinks it might burst out of her chest. Lucius is still next to her, but she can feel the quiver in his hands too.

 

She can’t quite believe it. She can’t believe it worked.

 

She is going to see her son again.

 

She dreads it, to see what these monsters have made of him.

 

And she yearns to see Draco again with all her heart, her heart that has become frozen for everyone but her beautiful boy, who thaws it out with only his mere presence, whose absence has been a constant weight on her.

 

When she finally sees him, her breaths die in her chest.

 

Rowle has him by the hair, and when he hurls Draco to the ground violently, the sickening thud of his body echoes through the expanse of the Manor.

 

All is silent, and she’s paralyzed, can hardly remember to breathe as the horror floods her body. Lucius is completely frozen and rigid next to her.

 

For a moment, she thinks he’s dead, and something in her shrivels and dies at the mere thought.

 

Draco lays still and quiet on the polished floor on his side, arms outstretched on top of one another in front of him, not even twitching. His gaunt, empty silver eyes stare ahead, white hair strewn over and stuck to his forehead, clad in black boxers and an oversized, dirty, tattered white shirt that has never belonged to him, the only protection against the cold of the season.

 

“He’s alive, if you’re wondering, but it seems he’s simply given up, and that’s only after a month of it. Can you believe that?” Rowle says in a low voice.

 

He tuts in disappointment, and then takes out his wand. Lucius’ fingers tighten so much around hers that it hurts. “On the bright side, Lucius, you may be proud to hear that your son hardly makes a sound anymore, no matter what is inflicted on him. But that is only until we do _this_.” He points it at Draco, and Narcissa already knows the word that will come out of his mouth, and her body lurches forward instinctually in preparation for an action she hadn’t planned yet. “Cruc—"

 

But the word dies in Rowle’s mouth half-way through.

 

Her hand is suddenly free by the next split-second, finger joints left aching and relieved, but the spot next to her is empty.

 

“You would do well to keep that stick you call your wand away from my son, Rowle,” Lucius drawls coolly, standing in between their son and the Death-Eater. His hand is wrapped around Rowle’s forearm in restraint and obstruction. “Narcissa and I will take it from here.”

 

Rowle shrugs off the hand impertinently. “Lucius Malfoy’s grown some guts, it seems. How very fascinating,” he sneers with a mocking smile.

 

Lucius regards him with cold indifference and then turns around.

 

Narcissa rushes forward towards Draco, her eyes burning already by the time she reaches him, gaping as her breaths shudder with the oncoming sobs.

 

She drops to her knees besides him, her hands hovering uncertainly for a moment.

 

And then with the gentlest hands, Narcissa gathers him in her arms, wrapping one arm around his shoulder blades and the other around his torso to hold Draco’s taller form up against her with a grunt. He’s lighter than a boy of his height should be. She tucks his head against her collar bone and holds him tightly as if he’s no more than a child, his face hiding into her neck like she can hide him away from the horrors of the world that he’s already suffered too much of.

 

“You’re so thin,” she murmurs, sorrowfully. Her gaze roves over his bony form, her focus zeroing on the ribs she can feel through the shirt and the clavicle and spine poking into her forearm. She lets go of his torso to stroke his grimy hair, face crumpling. “Oh gods, you’re so thin.”

 

Narcissa glances up briefly to see Lucius through her blurred vision, who has come to settle behind Draco, a hand lightly on his son’s bony shoulder. His expression is pinched and torn.

 

She presses a kiss to Draco’s forehead, to his brow, pushing his hair back from it by running her hand over his head. She looks down at him, hoping to see some life and recognition in his face, hoping he can absorb the affection and comfort she’s offering and return to her.

 

He stares hauntedly through the wall in front of him.

 

“Narcissa.”

 

She glances up in response to her husband’s voice.

 

Lucius holds his arms out, his throat bobbing with a swallow. “Give him to me.”

 

The parts of her that blames her husband for what had happened to her son, that had yelled and screamed at him to give her her son back on the days she couldn’t bear sitting around wondering what they were doing to Draco, thinking of him being scared and hurt, that hated Lucius in the moments she couldn’t reason out of faulting him for not being able to stop them from taking her child away from right in front of him… they must have bled through in her reaction, the blaze of anger and blame and resentment in her chest blazing in her sore eyes, because Lucius’ gaze lowers momentarily, averting away, his arms lowering fractionally too. He swallows again and holds his arms up once more to take Draco from her, giving her a single nod of pleaful insistence.

 

And for all of the anger and blame and resentment in her, she could not refuse the man. He was her love, after all, despite his many terrible flaws, some of which she’s never quite been able to forgive because they affected Draco terribly.

 

But the way he looks at her and then to Draco, with so much pain and sorrow and the love he’s forgotten to show his son one too many times, even though there’s so much of it.

 

She delicately pulls Draco away from her, palm touching the back of his head. Lucius moves forward to take him from her, and it’s like she’s watching him try to gather a fragile artefact to his chest, trying not to hold it too hard lest it breaks. He takes Draco’s head to his much broader shoulder, grips his shoulders with one arm and settles the other hand on the side of his son’s ribs.

 

“Draco,” he says softly, only for the three of them to hear. “Draco, it’s Father.”

 

Lucius touches his hairline tentatively with his fingers, as if he doesn’t know what to do. He looks lost.

 

“Mother and I… we need you to come back, Draco,” he says. “There is something you must do for us.”

 

Draco doesn’t move.

 

The rest of the world comes back into Narcissa’s focus, it seems, when Draco isn’t in her arms at the moment. The stares of the prisoners and captors alike begin to burn on her, and she sneaks a hesitant glance over to see the other Death-Eaters looking impatient and bored, but perhaps expecting that they would manage to bring Draco out of his state so that he could accomplish the task of confirming Harry Potter’s identity.

 

“That’s alright, Draco,” Lucius murmurs. “Take your time. Mother and I are right here until you are ready.”

 

Lucius is looking down into his son’s face, fingers touching his face in a tragically reverent sort of manner, as if he is perhaps seeing him for the first time, seeing his own silver eyes in his son’s eyes and his own hair in his hair and his own flesh and blood, the rest of the world out of his mind as it was for Narcissa when she had him.

 

“My son.” Lucius’ wavering voice, a voice Narcissa never thought him capable of, brings her attention back to her family. His face, struggling to remain rigid and composed against the sorrow and misery, is stung red with oncoming tears. He touches Draco’s sharp chin with his thumb. “My boy.”

 

And then the tears fall, one from each silver eye, but he seems to hardly notice as he holds Draco closer and rests his cheek against his son’s forehead.

 

“What did they do to my boy?” he grits out through lips turning inwards, arms tightening around his son with the force of his mournful and angry question. His voice is thick and heavy and the restrained sob sucks the air from his words in a low gasp towards the end.

 

Silence persists then, and as if Lucius had been expecting a response from Draco to his question somehow and had seen it go unfulfilled disappointedly, he shifts his head to rest against Draco’s silently, closing his eyes.

 

And then...

 

“Father?”

 

It’s so quiet and feeble that she might have imagined it, but her head snaps up nonetheless at it.

 

And all her doubts as to whether she truly heard it or not is cleared when Lucius’ eyes widen as well, matching her emotions of shock that quickly dangles on becoming profound joy and relief, as he fumbles to tug Draco back to see his face. His lips break out into a grin, quickly glancing at Narcissa as he calls out to her.

 

“Narcissa,” Lucius breathes, eyes finding hers but not remaining long in favor of turning back to Draco, still smiling.

 

Narcissa leans forward, seeing Draco blink up at her. There’s a quiver of a tiny, awed smile playing on his lips when he catches sight of her, and then looks back to his father, and her heart cracks to see him smile like this, still disoriented and unaware of the situation around him, and to think of him scared and hurt and that this may be the first time someone has held him in a long time.

 

“Well, well, well…” Greyback’s sneering voice pipes up. “The Malfoy boy has come to his senses again. Well, what are you waiting for, then? Ask him!”

 

She’d rather they give her son the time to reorient himself, but the situation feels too fragile and out of her hands, like they might take him away from her if she moves a toe out of line, so she keeps quiet.

 

Draco’s eyes flick in the direction of the voice, petrified. His hands begin to shake, and he shrinks into his father’s chest slightly.

 

“Draco,” Lucius says, in a low voice. “Draco, we are in midst of a situation. We’ve caught a boy that we think may be Harry Potter, and you… you are to look at him and confirm his identity.”

 

Draco’s forehead pinches in puzzlement. He hasn’t taken note of his surroundings, it seems, and Narcissa can tell he’s still mostly disoriented and confused and the only thing he knows is that he’s somehow with his parents and his tormentors in a room.

 

Lucius picks him up, and the strangled, pained noise from Draco at the sudden, abrupt movement makes Narcissa want to take him back from Lucius. He carries him over to where they have the prisoner restrained by a Death-Eater. The boy who may or may not be Harry Potter looks a little out of air and terribly uncomfortable due to the prolonged chokehold.

 

Lucius settles down in front of the captive with Draco, letting him lean against himself.

 

“Draco, if… if we are the ones to hand over Harry Potter to the Dark Lord,” Lucius says, smiling in a desperately reassuring and persuasive manner. “Perhaps he will forgive us. Perhaps… perhaps he will let you free.”

 

...

 

“We won’t be forgetting who actually caught the boy now, will we, Lucius?” Greyback reminds.

 

“Yes, yes, of course,” Lucius answers, exasperated and dismissive before he focuses back on Draco, speaking to him some more, but Harry isn’t paying attention anymore.

 

Harry stares at Draco's face instead, gaunt and pained and wounded. His cheeks are higher than he remembers them to be, the already lanky boy losing even more mass making him look sickly and thin. His eyes are sunken into his face, dark circles around them from weakness and starvation. He’s wearing the same shirt he wore in his dreams, but now filthier and bloodier. He hasn’t looked his way yet.

 

Lucius adjusts Draco so that he can face him with more ease, and as soon as Draco's eyes find him, Harry begins to panic on the inside, because there is no way Draco won’t recognize him, if not by his face alone, then definitely by his friends. He keeps himself still and stares him in the eye anyway, perhaps on the off-chance that Draco won’t. He feels a pang of guilt at the hope that Draco would be too out of it to, but it wars with the intense hope that remains anyway because if Malfoy’s lucid enough to know it’s him, it’s over. It’s certain death for Harry and Hermione and Ron. They will be turned over to Voldemort and killed in the most brutal manner, the proof of the madman’s true extent of brutality and heartlessness right in front of him.

 

There’s a quiver of fear in Draco’s gaze, Harry can see, and he is perhaps even more afraid than Harry, but he’s also staring back at him in a way that Harry can’t quite read or understand. He looks—vulnerable, is the closest word Harry could give to the way he’s looking at him, raw and open as he examines Harry’s swollen and pinked face, rovering over every feature, and when nothing else makes sense, Harry attributes the strange softness of his expression to fatigue and anguish. Draco doesn’t seem to know it’s him, not yet, because he isn’t giving them the confirmation. The silence drawn over the vast Manor is filled with suffocating tension and anticipation.

 

Draco opens his mouth, and Harry stops breathing.

 

“What’s wrong w-with—" His voice is scrapy and hoarse and rough from disuse. "his face?” Harry doesn’t know doesn’t _know_ if that means—

 

“A stinging hex, we think,” Lucius replies, and then hastens to ask, somewhat excited, “Well, is it, Draco? Is it Harry Potter?”

 

Harry tries to keep calm, because visibly panicking will only give him away, but if Draco _knows_ , then there is nothing left. They will waste no time in calling Voldemort and then they’re gone and all he can think about is how he’s taking down Ron and Hermione with him—

 

The silence falls again, and the anticipation and tension drapes over them like a blanket once more. Draco is still staring at him, still in that way that Harry can’t make sense of, and he wants to think it’s only fatigue and misery but he doesn’t entirely know if it can be called that.

 

“I don’t know,” Draco croaks out.

 

“Look closely, Draco,” Lucius insists, inclining forward some more to give his son a better chance at scrutiny.

 

“I can’t—be sure,” he rasps out, words cracking from disuse and dryness. The vice around Harry’s ribs loosen with relief.

 

“You can’t be _sure_ , boy?” Rowle’s voice hisses. Draco flinches violently. “Is this what we brought you here for? To tell us that you don’t bloody know anything about whether this is Harry Potter or not?”

 

“There is nothing that can be done,” Narcissa bites out defensively. “At least he’s giving the honest answer as opposed to giving the wrong one merely to satisfy.”

 

“Utterly useless you are, aren’t you?” Rowle snarls, ignoring Narcissa. “Just like your father. Perhaps you need a little shock to jog your mind?”

 

“Fuck you, Rowle,” Lucius snarls in counter, enraged on behalf of his son. The vulgar words sound strange coming out of a man such as Lucius Malfoy, but the months' worth of loathing there seems to have seeped into those few words.

 

For a moment, Rowle looks like he might implode, terribly affronted.

 

And then it drains out and he calms, smiling in a way that makes Harry’s skin crawl to look at, somehow worse than any anger he could have shown. The way he’s looking down at Draco serves to turn his gut even more. Harry wants to tune out what’s happening around him and use all this time to think up an escape plan, and the ache in his throat and neck gives him a sense of urgency, but he can’t seem to stop staring at Draco, can’t stop watching the chaos and disaster of it all.

 

On Rowle’s lips, there is a sadistic and twisted little grin, sickly amused as if he knows just what he’s about to do, and he’s still looking at Draco in that way that makes Harry's gut turn, now with a lot more intent, like he expects Draco to know what’s coming.

 

And Draco does, apparently, clear in the way his eyes are widened, bowed and unable to meet anyone else’s, and his tremors are worse than they’ve been all this time, hands shaking violently against his father’s chest.

 

Rowle crouches down to come close to Draco and his father.

 

“I’m sure your filthy little boy here would know what that’s like,” he sneers in a low voice, that horrible grin still on his face, and everything in Harry freezes cold at the words that are even more horrible.

 

...

 

No.

 

No. Please, no.

 

His father freezes cold, halting into complete stillness, his eyes wide and his face pinched in crippling shock and confusion, as if he’s not entirely sure of what he’s heard and how to process it.

 

Draco swallows, staring up at him. His father is holding him for the first time in forever and now Draco doesn’t know if he’ll want to ever again. His father slowly turns to look at Rowle, still horrified and confused, and Rowle straightens in his peripheral vision. Draco’s heart is hammering so hard in his chest that he thinks he might die, and he’s trying not to lose himself again in the flashes of abhorrence in icy grey eyes and violent hands gripping his hips bruisingly—

 

“He’s only trying—to upset you, Father,” Draco chokes out, trying to push away the nausea threatening to gag him. He keeps his voice low so that Rowle doesn’t hear. He tries not to think of Potter beside him, having heard every word. “Y-you mustn't—listen to him.”

 

He briefly considers going a step ahead and outright saying that Rowle’s lying, rather than leaving it as a manipulated truth that falsely implies it, but his father’s haunted eyes meet his and the developing humiliation and shame and gauntness, as the confusion and horror fades, silences him.

 

His father’s hands grip his biceps, slowly untangling him, still careful and controlled, perhaps as if he is trying not to hasten in getting Draco away from him. His father hands him to his mother again, and Draco tries to say, almost blurting it out in a rasp, “I’m sorry, father.”

 

But perhaps his father just didn't hear him.

 

His father stands to his feet, slow and weary, and almost staggers away to stand with his back to the room, as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with what he’s learned. Draco's eyes burn, but he thinks it might make his father feel even more ashamed and he doesn’t want to embarrass him any more, so he keeps his face straight and rigid and turns away and curls up against his mother, closing his eyes and trying to ignore everything inside and outside of him. He hasn’t seen his mother’s face and he doesn’t know if she wants to hold him either until she frames his head and kisses the top of it and presses her cheek against his forehead. Her arms wrap around him, hands trembling on his back and head, and she murmurs waveringly, “It’s alright. It’s alright, baby dragon. It’s alright. It wasn't your fault."

 

“Do tell us, Lucius,” Rowle mocks. “What was the point of bringing your bitch of a son here when all he does is tell us he doesn’t know _anything_?” Draco swallows again when his throat burns, when his face and his eyes burn too, but he keeps his eyes closed and tries to think of his dreams to make himself forget what’s just happened, tries to think of beautiful Harry in his dreams, but it’s hard to think of them when Potter’s sitting right next to him and seeing him like this, this pathetic and filthy and humiliating state of him.

 

He doesn’t not notice his father’s silence.

 

“You will mind the way you speak about my son, Rowle,” he hears his mother hiss furiously above him, arms tightening around him. “How _dare_ you—"

 

“I will speak however I damn well please, Narcissa,” Rowle retorts.

 

“You—you are a disgusting and sick _bastard_ , Thorfinn Rowle!”  his mother yells, sounding on the verge of enraged tears, his voice wobbling dangerously. 

 

“Cissy, what is with all the ruckus, dear?” The high-pitched voice of his aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, pipes up from somewhere far away.

 

…

 

Draco looks around for a brief moment, peering sideways as his gaze rovers over Ron, on Hermione, and eventually landing on Harry. He quickly turns his head back into Narcissa’s shoulder, swallowing and closing his eyes again.

 

“If it is indeed Potter, he must not be harmed,” Bellatrix is murmuring to herself. “The Dark Lord wishes to dispose of him himself.”

 

Harry catches Draco looking at him again, but this time he doesn’t look away.

 

Instead, Harry sees his lips move, only a little, some sort of weary plea on his face.

 

And as soon as he does, his gaze averts away once again. Narcissa strokes his hair.

 

He _knows_.

 

Draco knows that it’s him.

 

And he didn’t say anything.

 

“Take the prisoners to the cellar, Greyback!” Bellatrix shrieks, the sound of her voice frightening. “All except the mudblood.”

 

Greyback grunts in pleasure.

 

She grabs Hermione and shoves her into the wall, cornering her, and Harry’s heart drops with dread. Bellatrix is a cruel woman, after all, with no limits to her mercilessness, and to see his best friend at her mercy makes him want to rip her away from Hermione and take her and run. Hermione’s composed herself to keep a braver front, staring Bellatrix in the eye.

 

Ron shakes his head frantically. “No, no, please, you can have me! Leave her alone! I’ll—"

 

The blow to Ron’s face resounds throughout the Manor, dropping into silence. Harry’s heart pounds hard, shrivelled and tight in his chest. Hermione looks torn and wide-eyed.

 

“Don’t you worry, Blood Traitor.” Bellatrix grins madly. “I’ll take you next, once she dies.”

 

She then turns back to Greyback.

 

“Take them down to the cellar! Make sure they are secure, but don’t do anything to them yet.”

 

Greyback grabs Harry by the hair and forces him to stand, emitting a pained grunt from him. Ron is terribly distressed and agitated beside him, shaking and sweaty. He keeps trying to glance back at Hermione, but Greyback shoves him forward. Harry thinks of an escape, an escape, some way to evade all of them, some way to get their wands back, some way to get Hermione and Draco, some way to get out of here with Ron and Hermione and Draco and all the other prisoners—

 

The heavy door of the cellar is opened by Greyback with a tap of his wand. They are thrown inside the dank and dark room. The slam of the shutting door behind them is immediately followed by a high, blood-curdling scream.

 

“HERMIONE!” Ron screams, writhing against the ropes binding his hands together. “HERMIONE!”

 

“Be quiet, Ron! Ron, stop it. We need to work out a way—" Harry says, trying to keep calm and keep Ron calm too. They won’t get out of here alive if they lose themselves in their panic. There’s already enough of it for Harry when the lives of so many people are pressing down on him.

 

“HERMIONE! HERMIONE!”

 

“Ron, stop it! We need a plan, we need to get out of these ropes—" Harry tugs at the ropes tying his own hands, and it scrapes harshly against the skin of his wrists.

 

“Harry? Is that you?”

 

There’s a shadow in the dark, the voice of it sounding familiar. It shifts closer. Ron isn’t shouting anymore.

 

“Harry? Ron?”

 

“ _Luna_?”

 

…

 

Granger keeps screaming and screaming and screaming, horrible and anguished and high, Weasley bellowing her name from the basement below. He’s heard a lot of people scream like that in sixth year, but it’s a lot different now, and it’s a lot different when he knows what makes one scream like that, and it’s a lot different when it’s the screams of someone he’s seen every day for six years.

 

The tremors wrack his shoulders, his face wet and his eyes wide, weeping silently. He wants to stop, but it doesn’t stop no matter how much he tries to breathe in and how much he keeps his face straight, because he ends up clutching his mother and burying his face into her neck and continues to cry hushedly. He worries of what his father might think if he’s looking at him right now, and Draco thinks it’s one of the few times he wishes his father wouldn’t see him.

 

He doesn’t know what his mother understands, but she pulls him closer anyway, taking all of his weight as she leans them both back against the wall, arms wrapping around his head tightly his ear presses into her shoulder and her hand clamps over his other ear to drown out the screams. He wants his aunt to stop hurting her, wants to tell her to stop, wants to scream at her to stop, but he can’t get anything out through the terror and the lump in his throat choking his words down.

 

…

 

It’s Dobby that comes and saves them. They snatch Wormtail’s wand and fight against the other Death-Eaters until Bellatrix halts the battle by holding her short silver knife to an unconscious Hermione’s throat.

 

It’s Dobby who causes the chandelier to nearly fall on top of her, forcing her to throw Hermione as she shoves away from under the chandelier, screeching. Ron catches Hermione, tugging her close into his own body in a desperate grasp and doesn't let go.

 

As Harry seizes Dobby’s hand, gripping Griphook’s with his other as they begin to Disapparate, he turns around to give one last look to the drawing room.

 

His eyes rove over quickly until they find the Malfoys, Narcissa holding Draco as she leans back against the wall. Draco is watching him silently from behind his mother’s arms, and he doesn’t look hurt or angry or distressed, and Harry thinks that might be worse than anything he’s expected to see on his face at being left behind.

 

The last glimpse he sees is of Draco looking away, turning his head into Narcissa’s collarbone again the way he does whenever he catches Harry looking, or anyone looking, but it’s different this time, more weary and resigned, as if he’d already expected it all.

 

Harry’s heart wrenches in his chest and he doesn’t know if it’s only because he’s jarred by the sudden leap of his body from one place to another.

 

 

…

 

“They ought to take him back now, Cissy,” Bella coaxes, kneeling in front of her. She is pale and petrified, however, for she knows that when Voldemort learns of Harry Potter’s capture and escape, they will be in for a terrible retribution.  

 

Yet, Narcissa can hardly care at the moment, can hardly care about anything outside of her son. Not the Dark Lord, not Harry Potter escaping capture, not purifying the wizarding world of muggleborns and half-bloods and blood traitors. What does any of it matter? What is the point if it got Draco, the only thing that really matters, hurt in the end? And by the very people that they shared their beliefs and visions with, at that. “You know we can’t go against the Dark Lord’s orders and let him stay. He’s… he’s already going to be so very angry—"

 

Bella reaches for Draco, nails digging into his shoulder, and when Draco’s grip tightens shakily around her own hand, his narrow shoulders tensing against her arm, Narcissa grabs Bella’s wrist to remove her palm.

 

“Cissy,” Bella warns. “You’d much rather we don’t drag him out of your hands, don’t you, sister dear?”

 

“You will not touch my son,” Narcissa whispers, his voice wobbling with conviction. “ _No_ one... will _ever_ touch my son again.” She doesn’t want to think about how it’s far-fetched to hope she could get away with Draco, because right now, all she knows is that she can’t ever let go of him because that would mean letting them all take him away again.

 

“Narcissa.”

 

It’s Lucius, who is moving towards her, and in that moment, Narcissa hates him, because she _knows_. She knows he’s going to tell her to let them take Draco.

 

He settles in front of her, dropping to his knees. He looks gaunt and empty.

 

“There is no point in keeping him here, Narcissa.”

 

Narcissa glances up at him, glaring at him with all the hatred and fury she feels blazing in her body. How can he say that? How can a father say that there is no point in keeping his son with him, imply that the better option is to let a group of monsters take him and do whatever they willed with him?

 

“The Dark Lord will find us wherever we run,” Lucius says, far too reasonably, but Narcissa hardly cares to be reasonable if it means handing her son over to people who will hurt him and abuse him in the most horrific ways. “He will kill us, slowly and painfully, for our disobedience.”

 

Then so be it, she thinks. Let him come and rip him away from her dead body, because at least Draco will never have to remember his own parents turning him over with their own hands.

 

“He will kill our son,” Lucius says, speaking even more softly to her, as if she was an insane inpatient, or a spooked animal. “which defeats the very purpose of keeping him here.”

 

Perhaps it’d be better if they died together, then, Draco with her, rather than Draco dying alone one day on accident in whatever filthy cellar they’re keeping him in, unloved and uncared for for months or years.

 

Narcissa shakes her head, squeezing her son closer to her.

 

There is a murmur against her neck.

 

“Let me go.”

 

She stills.

 

For a moment, she wonders if she heard wrong. She looks down, letting go of him to frame Draco’s cheeks to make him look up at her.

 

His expression is weary and pleaful and ripped apart, and Narcissa didn’t hear it wrong at all.

 

She touches his cheek with her fingers. “I will not,” she whispers.

 

“I will not… have you die for me.”

 

Narcissa shakes her head. “You mustn’t worry about anything other than yours—"

 

“Please.”

 

“Narcissa.” Lucius touches her arm. “Narcissa, we are no good to him dead. There is no point in keeping him here if he'll end up dead either."

 

Narcissa’s face crumples, vision blurring, shaking her head again. She swallows. “He’s just a boy,” she chokes out, strangled and thick. “Please. He’s just a boy.” She exhales a shuddering breath. “Let me take his place. I’ll take his place.”

 

“We can’t go against the Dark Lord’s orders now, can we?” Scabior says. “It must be the Malfoy boy, ma’am.”

 

Narcissa sobs, burying her face into his hair.

 

“I’ll put an end to this right now,” Rowle snarls. He takes out his wand, pointing it at Narcissa. “Sick and tired of this shite.”

 

Bella takes her own out to point it at him.

 

“No need for all these dramatics, Rowle,” Bella mocks. Rowle lowers his wand begrudgingly. “Cissy, you won’t go against the wishes of the Dark Lord, will you now? Come on. Touching as this is, the reunion has gone on too long.”

 

Draco clutches her hand, staring up at her, the same beautiful silver eyes she remembered staring up at her when he was born, when he was an infant, a child, and now they’re older and they’re tired and afraid and begging her to let him go.

 

And Lucius is right. He is right, even if she hates him for telling her to hand him over to all these bastards, for not fighting to keep his son away from anyone that would hurt him.

 

Her arms loosen around him. She kisses Draco’s forehead and runs her fingers through his hair and murmurs to him quietly so no one else hears, “I will save you. Your father and I… we’re letting you go now, but we will come for you, do you understand?”

 

Draco doesn’t respond. His weary eyes slowly flick sideways in Lucius’ direction, and Narcissa wants to tell him that it’s not true, what he’s thinking. It’s not.

 

But they’re taking his arms and they’re taking him away and Narcissa wants to hold on to every part of him that’s being ripped away from her arms and hands, her fingers not quite releasing his shaking hands until they pull at it. Her face twists painfully, tears staining her eyelashes and cheeks, the pain and aching sorrow in her chest so horrible she thinks it might bleed.

 

And then he’s gone, they’re all gone, and it’s over.

 

She folds over at the abdomen, as if it might ease something in her, and cries and cries and cries. Lucius comes over and pulls her up and into his chest, and she doesn’t stop crying and screaming until the living world falls away and the darkness takes her over.

 

…

 

Severus has heard of the events of the Malfoy Manor a week ago, has heard of Draco’s awakening. The reason of it is most obvious, of course; the shedding of Lucius Malfoy’s tears.

 

He walks over, lowering down to sit by Draco, who is covering himself up in his cloak still yet. Severus doesn’t know what to expect when he wakes up, for the boy surely is intelligent enough to work out that Severus had slipped him something. He might be angry at having been essentially drugged against his will and having lost autonomy, something which has been most unfortunately scarce in this place.

 

Severus touches his godson’s head, feeling compelled to offer him some semblance of solace.

 

He looked sickly and terribly unwell, dark circles even more clearly visible around his sunken eyes than he remembered, too skinny and dirty and covered in bruises and blood. Many of his toes and fingers were all dislocated and broken. There are smears of blood beneath him on the floor.

 

Severus closes his eyes and swallows, leans his head back against the wall and tries to control his mind, his emotions threatening to scatter and force him into something impractical and far more humane than what he is doing right now. He touches Draco’s shoulder, tentative, but he can hardly ground himself when he can feel the jut of the bones of it.

 

What is this worth? All of this? It can’t possibly be worthy any of this.

 

He casts a nourishing spell and a cleaning charm. He decides to save the healing for when Draco wakes up, lest it disturbs his rest.

 

It’s nearly two hours later that Draco starts crying and pleading in his sleep.

 

“Draco,” Severus mutters, shaking his shoulder. “Draco, wake up. You are dreaming.”

 

Draco startles awake. He tries to twist away from his hand, whimpering, but hardly makes it far, only managing to writhe slightly before growing exhausted and stilling.

 

“It’s Severus,” Severus says, quiet. “You’re safe, Draco. You’re safe.”

 

 

...

 

“You gave me something,” Draco says, hoarse and cracked. “Didn’t you?”

 

Severus stills. It’s been silent for the past half an hour, since he'd repaired him as much as possible. He could not entirely heal his muscle atrophy, one of the several unfavourable outcomes of the Alucinatio potion as it rendered the user completely motionless, leaving their body to waste away. He still wondered what the right thing to do was, and he still hadn't been able to figure this out.

 

“I did,” he responds calmly, prepared for a feeble but angry and scandalized earful by the boy.

 

He doesn't look at Draco, but he can sense the boy's gaze on him, although what he will find should he meet them, he didn't know.

 

“Please,” is all the response he gets, a mere whisper of the word. Severus meets the grey eyes, then, and finds a red-rimmed gaze weighed with mourn and desperation.

 

Severus reaches for him and gathers him carefully in his arms. Despite his precise and meticulous movements, however, Draco chokes out a strangled, agonized sound. He leans him against his own chest, cradling his head to his shoulder. He holds the boy up with his arm and reaches into his cloak for the vial of a faded lilac potion.

 

It's only when Draco falls asleep that Severus lets himself mourn the anguish of the boy in his arms, and the loss of his own morality, once more. 


	4. The Rescue of Draco Malfoy

"Are _you ashamed of me?"_

 

_Draco doesn't know why he asks this. His father hadn't given any indication that he is, and yet, there is some strange, deep-seated and aching feeling in him that made the words leave him, inexplicably._

 

_Draco tries to make sense of it by attributing it to, perhaps, not being able to provide his father with a grandson, a Malfoy heir, because his future was set and certain. Even at only eighteen years old, he knows there isn't anyone he can see an entire lifetime with except Harry._

 

_This doesn't make sense, however. His father had made his peace with it a very long time ago._

 

_Father looks at him with an imperceptible shake of his head, as if he doesn't entirely understand where it's all coming from. He pats his shoulder anyway and smiles slightly. "You're my son, Draco. My only boy. There is hardly anything in the world that can make me ashamed of you."_

 

**_..._ **

 

The war is over.

 

All the horcruxes are destroyed and Voldemort is dead. They are left with rubble and destruction and grief as the reminders in its wake.

 

They’ve lost so much, so many people, countless brave people that Harry didn’t know the names of, and so many that had been sewn into the fabric of his life and ripped away.

 

Cedric. Hedwig. Sirius. Dumbledore. Dobby. Snape. Fred.

 

Remus and Nymphadora.

 

Remus and Nymphadora who had a baby boy just before they were snatched away, and now sweet Teddy Lupin will be forced to grow an orphan, even if under the capable and warm care of his grandmother, Andromeda.

 

But he will not be forced to grow without a godfather, like Harry had without Sirius. That, Harry swears.

 

Harry, along with Ron and Hermione, had returned to the Weasleys, who were welcoming and warm and kind in spite of the loss that’s left all their worlds grey. Neville and Luna went back to their homes, Neville to his grandmother and Luna to her father in their cottage. They said they’d see him at school in three months.

 

He doesn’t think he wants to go back to school, but Ron and Hermione and Ginny do and they persuade them to return to complete the year with them, every one aggrieved and mournful but determined not to waste their second chance at life (the war has only seemed to make them stronger, more appreciative, and Harry envied them). Harry can hardly refuse any of them, even though Harry’s so tired that he doesn’t think he could ever want to do anything ever again. He doesn’t know if he wants to do it anymore, become an Auror or a Quidditch star or study Potions and Charms and DADA at a school that’s etched with death and bloodshed, where he can look at corners and walls and the floor and remember the exact spot someone he loved died, or had seen their dead body, remember the positions he found them in. It all seems so pointless.

 

Some days he thinks he doesn’t want to do anything anymore, except sleep for a thousand years.

 

There is still one thing he must do.

 

It had been Narcissa Malfoy, in the end, who made it all possible, a crucial component that put a close to the bloodshed and horrors and allowed Harry to destroy the evil madman that had been making his and his friends’ lives hell for the last seven years.

 

Voldemort had thrown the Killing Curse at him, except due to their mental connection, it had somehow affected him too. Too wary to come close to Harry, he had singled out Narcissa and demanded her to ensure and confirm that Harry is dead.

 

She complied on his orders and kneeled before Harry, checked his pulse and slid her hand under his shirt to feel his heartbeat.

 

And she had asked one thing.

 

_Will you save my son?_

 

Harry had whispered a quiet breath of the affirmative, and she had turned around and lied right to Voldemort’s face.

 

_“Quite dead.”_

 

And it was that one crucial decision on her part that had saved Harry’s life and had helped the rest of the wizarding world to live.

 

Her request had been a denial of the hopeless hope Harry had that Malfoy had somehow made it out of there at some point after. He’d had a lot of things to think about in the months after, but that had been one of the things he hadn’t quite been able to stop thinking about, one of the many things that haunted him in the quiet moments they stopped their trekking to rest.

 

Malfoy had thought they left him behind because they couldn’t care less about what happened to him.

 

Harry had told Ron and Hermione that Malfoy had known who he was, and hadn’t said anything despite it possibly meaning that Voldemort would have granted him freedom for the truth and that the Malfoys would have been raised higher in the eyes of others. Harry could not think why Malfoy did this, besides a favor for a favor sort of deal, but he couldn’t overlook that his uncertain, unsolidified answer had essentially saved all of their lives, for it forced the Death-Eaters to keep them alive long enough to question and attempt to certify that it was indeed Harry. Malfoy may have been a lot of things, but unintelligent was not one of them, and he had known that a simple _yes_ or a _no_ would overall end in all their deaths.

 

They had made up their mind right then and there that they would go for him one day, even though the guilt and shame of delaying such a thing so long didn’t leave their faces or their minds for the rest of the day and night, and definitely not their minds for months after. There didn’t seem to be a choice then, not when they hadn't the faintest clue where they were keeping Malfoy, not when there wasn’t anyone they could pull the location from and not when they were constantly on the run, evading Death-Eaters and Voldemort’s clutches in order to search for the Horcruxes, the obliteration of which would save the entire wizarding world.

 

The war was over now and Harry loathed to waste any more time than they had to, because every minute gone by is another minute they’re hurting Draco. Part of him wonders if it’s natural to feel this much for a boy who was connected to him by nothing more than childhood rivalry, but when he’d voiced his musings to Hermione, she’d told him it was only human. He couldn’t stand seeing another human being in so much pain. It was only human.

 

Ron had chalked it down to his savior tendencies before the war. Harry knows how his best friend thinks, and part of Ron’s grieving process upon losing his brother included a lot of hatred and anger for the Death-Eaters and Voldemort, naturally, but it’s hard to tell if that extended to Malfoy too and the fact that it was he who had a part in letting the war into Hogwarts, even if under duress, so Harry tries not to bring it up around him for the time being.

 

Harry had spent yesterday trying to meet the Head of the Aurors Department in the hopes that he would be willing to lend some Aurors in the rescue mission, because Harry was at a terrible loss as to where to start looking.

 

Hermione had warned that they wouldn’t be too willing or susceptible to his requests, on account of Malfoy being a Death-Eater and being the son of one and whatnot. Harry had decided to try his luck anyway in the hopes that his status as the Savior of the Wizarding World might be of influence. Harry didn’t particularly enjoy being placed on a pedestal, being seen as some sort of celebrity that’s followed constantly by reporters, so much so that he had taken to wearing very concealing muggle clothes in public.

 

But something good had to come out of all this popularity and special treatment, didn’t it?

 

The meeting didn’t go very well, unfortunately. The Head of the Aurors had outright refused, stating that they already had a lot of cases that they were dealing with since post-war.

 

He now sat at the newly elected Minister’s office. Minister Bedivere sat across from him. Nobody can turn down the Minister, obviously, and if Harry can get _him_ to agree, then getting the Head of the Aurors Department on his side as well should be an easy feat.

 

“Draco Lucius Malfoy, you say?” Bedivere repeats, pushing a tray of refreshments towards Harry.

 

Harry nods in polite gratitude, picking up a crumpet. “Yes, Minister.”

 

“The boy who followed in his Death-Eater father’s footsteps and brought war into your school?”

 

“I’m fairly certain Draco Malfoy was under duress, Minister. His life and the life of his family was at stake. He can hardly be blamed,” Harry defends. “He’s just another victim of the war.”

 

“I’m sure he is,” Bedivere says, not sounding sure at all. He smiles in a tight, fake sort of way. “You say the Death-Eaters have him confined and are possibly tormenting and abusing him as we speak, assuming he’s even, well, alive?”

 

Harry is growing very impatient and frustrated at this point. The Minister is clearly reluctant about taking on Malfoy’s missing persons case and is only repeating back what Harry told him to stall. He also particularly loathed his uncertainty as to whether or not Malfoy might be alive.

 

“Yes, Minister.” He manages to sound quite polite and stable, even when he feels anything but.

 

“And how have you come to hear of this, Mr. Potter?”

 

“I saw him at the Malfoy Manor,” Harry says clearly, lest Bedivere assumes this is some sort of false, fabricated information for whatever reason. “The Death-Eaters captured my friends and I, but before they did, my friend, Hermione Granger that is, shot me with a stinging hex to disguise me. Draco Malfoy was brought over to identify me and he expressly refused to give them any apparent answer, thereby saving our lives. There are many witnesses that can tell you the same story, Minister.” He hopes this might reduce the Minister’s hardness of the heart towards Malfoy. “You also ought to know that Voldemort’s—" Bedivere winced. "—defeat would not have been possible without his mother and her part in lying to him that I was dead. It’s the least we owe her, to give her her son back, don’t you think?”

 

Bedivere sighs, sounding put-upon and contrite. “Mr. Potter… if I may be honest with you, I don’t believe we have enough resources or men to take on your offered case. We are already juggling too many missing persons cases related to the Death-Eaters as it is, innocent people—"

 

“Draco Malfoy is also innocent—"

 

“From what I’ve gathered, he truly isn’t, Mr. Potter. There is no proof yet that he was forced into committing the crimes that he did,” Bedivere says, referring to his part in Dumbledore’s ‘murder’, despite Harry having told them that it was planned by Dumbledore himself as he was already at death’s door and that Malfoy had lowered his wand upon Dumbledore’s gentle coaxing (a clear proof of his reluctance), but it seems they’re not willing to absolve Malfoy as it was still, in a sense, attempted murder and against the law.

 

“It doesn’t take a _simpleton_ to understand the unwilling nature of his actions when you hear the—"

 

Bedivere leans forward, clasping his hands together and seemingly choosing to ignore Harry’s mild impertinence. “And if he is alive, he will have to face trial and possibly a decade in Azkaban. Right now, however, our focus is on discovering identities of all of You-Know-Who’s followers, particularly the more dangerous ones who have caused much chaos and casualty, and arresting them, which is what most of our Aurors are preoccupied with at the moment. Each of them are already juggling too much. Their hands are full, as you can tell, Mr. Potter. There is nothing I can do.”

 

Harry’s fists clench under the desk, breathing in slowly. Is it really so impossible? Harry’s fairly certain that if it had been anyone else he came to look for, the Minister would have obliged with little resistance. But because it was Draco Malfoy, regardless of how he may have been pressured into doing the things he did under those roles, the Minister could hardly care about whether the boy lives or dies.

 

“Thank you,” Harry grits out, even though _thank you_ is the last thing he wants to say

 

He stands up, feeling the blaze of anger and frustration and indignation in his chest. He turns and walks towards the door.

 

 _Actually_ , Harry thinks as he halts at the door.

 

Fuck it.

 

There has to be some perks to being the Savior of the Wizarding World, right?

 

“Actually, Minister,” Harry says, turning back around to face Bedivere. “There _is_ something you can do.”

 

Bedivere sighs, exasperated, but he puts down the pen he was writing with on a parchment and glances up at him, as if painstakingly humoring Harry in light of his status as the one who destroyed Voldemort. “And what might that be, Mr. Potter?”

 

Harry stares the Minister right in the eye, pulls it back, and shoots.

 

“Go fuck yourself.”

 

**…**

 

“You… _what_?”

 

Harry shifts uncomfortably as Ron and Hermione stare at him, baffled.

 

“I told the Minister to go fuck himself.”

 

He sounds mortified to his own ears, having realized soon after that that might have been one of the many bad decisions he’s made in the heat of a moment.

 

“ _Blimey_ , Harry!” Ron exclaims.

 

“Harry,” Hermione says slowly, helplessly, a pinch between her brows. “You don’t… tell the _Minister_ to… to…”

 

“I was… upset,” Harry finishes lamely.

 

“You were _upset?_ ” Hermione repeats incredulously, that furrow in her forehead still there.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Ron raises an eyebrow. “Mate... didn’t you want to work in the Ministry as an Auror?”

 

“Um. Not, not anymore, I think.”

 

And then it’s all silent. Hermione is still staring at him incredulously. 

 

And then a quiet, choked snort breaks the speechlessness.

 

Harry glances at Ron, whose cheeks are tight as a grin threatens to break out on his face. He glances at Hermione, as if hoping she didn’t notice, and then sputters out in desperately controlled laughter anyway.

 

And then he’s laughing so hard his eyes are tearing, folding over at the abdomen. Harry grins against his will. He hasn’t seen Ron smile, let alone _laugh_ like that for a while, not since Fred’s gone away, and Harry has missed it so much it’s making his chest ache but it’s also making him burst into laughter too, which is unfortunate because Hermione then whacks him on the head with a roll of parchment, and then Ron too, but it doesn’t stop them at all. If anything, it only makes them laugh harder, Harry because he’s too relieved to discover that they are even capable of laughing like this again after the Battle.

 

When he looks up at Hermione, still grinning and choking in his mirth, he sees that she’s smiling too, shaking her head in fond exasperation at the two of them.

 

The laughter dies down, replaced by silence once again. Hermione asks a moment later, “I’m guessing it didn’t work, then.” She sounds disappointed. “They’re not willing to help, are they?”

 

The atmosphere becomes somber again, the light moment completely finished.

 

“No,” Harry says quietly.

 

Ron knows about what Harry’s doing. He’s not actively trying to hide it from him, but he knows he’d rather not talk about it with Ron around, because he’s seen how quiet he goes when they talk about it. He hasn’t confided in Hermione about this, however.

 

“Well, can you blame them?”

 

Harry and Hermione’s heads snap towards Ron.

 

“Ronald!” Hermione chastised. Just like that, the atmosphere goes somber again.

 

Ron shakes his head. “No, look… Malfoy, he’s been a prat or whatever to us the entire time we’ve known him. Alright, whatever. I’m willing to look past that. But… but Harry, his father tried to kill you, and his bloody lunatic of an aunt killed… k-killed your godfather.” Harry’s chest constricts at the words said out loud. Hermione’s hand grips his, not moving her shocked gaze away from Ron. “She _tortured_ you, Hermione—"

 

“We’re not blaming Malfoy for what his family did—" It’s Hermione who speaks first.

 

‘But do you honestly think he was against any of it? You don’t think he bloody _approved—"_

 

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “We don’t know any of that, Ron. But I know he’s not evil, if that’s what you’re saying. He’s a racist and a bully, yes, but he’s not heartless—"

 

“He let them into the school,” Ron grits out, face flushing with anger and emotion. “He let all of them into our school, and they killed Professor Dumbledore, the only person they feared and who could protect us, and _look_ what happened. Look at all the people that died, all the people we’ve lost; Colin Creevey, Remus and Nymphadora, just after they had a baby! My _brother—"_ The mention of Fred makes his face crumple for the briefest moment, his voice depressing with anguish, like he has to force it out of him. “...is dead. Do you think any of it would have happened if he didn’t fix that fucking Vanishing Cabinet and given them a free pass—"

 

“Yes,” Hermione breathes out, even though she looks close to tears, perhaps due to a mix of seeing Ron’s unfiltered grief and fury that he hardly speaks about and of hearing about all that they’ve lost again. “Yes, Ron. It would have happened, because if not Malfoy, it would have been someone else finding some other way, someone worse even.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“He saved our lives,” Harry says, changing tactics. “At the Malfoy Manor. I told you. He knew it was me, and he didn’t say anything—"

 

“Well, he didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart, Harry! He _wanted_ you to feel indebted—"

 

“So be it, Ron, but we’re not leaving him there," Harry says calmly.

 

“He’s not our responsibility. Haven’t we done enough? Why do we have to go and risk our lives for a moronic, selfish, arrogant prat who bit off more than he could—"

 

Harry breathes, closing his eyes. “Okay. However you might feel about Malfoy, don’t you at least think his mother deserves this? To have her son back? Because Voldemort wouldn’t be dead without her, but _I_ would be.”

 

That puts Ron to silence. Harry suddenly feels like using his own hypothetical death was too much.

 

“You don’t…” Harry starts again. “You don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to. You don’t have to come with me—"

 

“Us,” Hermione corrects.

 

Harry glances at her, giving her a small, grateful smile. He looks back to Ron. “After everything you and your family have been through, I’m not ever going to ask you to risk your life for anyone or anything. But I just—don’t want you to be upset. I just want to know that you’re okay if we do this.”

 

“My problem isn’t that you want to save him, Harry,” Ron says wearily. “My problem is you and 'Mione wanting to go into a place that’s probably _crawling_ with Death-Eaters who want to kill the both of you for killing their leader, after already having spent months in danger, to save a prick—"

 

“We’ll be fine,” Harry says quickly, not really wanting to argue with him anymore.

 

Ron sighs, putting his head in his hands. “It's just... it's all so fucked up.”

 

“He’s going to die, Ron,” Harry says quietly. “He’s going to die if we don’t save him.” There wasn’t anyone else left to save him, after all.  “Nobody deserves to die the way he’s going to there.”

 

Ron rubs his hands down his face, nods once and sniffs.

 

“I just sounded like a right arsehole, didn’t I?” he says softly.

 

"You're hurting," Hermione says. They both move over to sit next to him on the bed.

 

“Just so fucking mad all the time,” Ron breathes out, sounds as helpless as the way they all felt. “Just so fucking mad at everyone that had anything to do with You-Know-Who and his followers and the War.”

 

“Malfoy got hurt in the middle of it too,” Hermione says gently. “We can’t blame him for everything that happened..”

 

Ron nods, and then the conversation ends, silence reigning over.

 

Hermione takes Ron’s hand in her own and kisses his cheek and lays her head against his shoulder, and Harry presses his arm and shoulder against Ron’s. He knows. He understands anger and pain and grief, the irrationality it can become, and how it sometimes came out at all the wrong things, because you just didn’t know what to do with so much of it except keep it inside and struggle with it.

 

“I’ll come with you,” Ron says, looking at Harry. “You know I’ll always come with you. With both of you.”

 

Hermione shifts her head over his shirt. Ron turns towards her and kisses the top of her bushy brown hair.

 

**...**

 

 

They try to talk to Yaxley first, visiting him in Azkaban and speaking to him through an invisible barrier. He refuses to tell, but he lets slip an implication that the knowledge and Draco’s life is being used as leverage against the Malfoys, who would waste no time in listing all the Death-Eaters in order to lessen their own sentence and save Lucius from Azkaban, and had no qualms in giving up the people that had hurt their child. They talk to two other Death-Eaters, who refuse to give away anything as well, if only in contempt.

 

They could have gone with avoiding Bellatrix altogether, yet they all knew she was the most plausible source, heartless enough to be entrusted with the information of where Draco is being kept captive, and yet, feeling whatever is the closest thing to care to her for her sister and thereby being more susceptible to surrendering the information for Narcissa’s sake. There was no Dark Lord to disobey and she didn’t particularly care about any of the other Death-Eaters. More than anything, she wished them death in their rescue mission once they entered a safehouse that was crowded with the many followers of Voldemort.

 

So in the end it was her who gave them the location, even if she made it rather difficult to draw it out of her just because she could. Harry wanted to keep Hermione from having to interact with her, but Hermione wanted to do the same for Harry too, who saw Sirius falling back into the veil everytime he even heard her name. So in the end, they all went together.

 

Talking to her was hard. Trying not to say the most horrible things he could think of, to pour out all the flames in him on her and be civil and firm—it was the hardest thing. They slipped more times than they could maintain composure. She didn’t make it easy at all with her goading and provoking, mentioning Sirius every chance she got, calling Hermione a mudblood and imitating her screams mockingly, calling Ron (who was the hardest to stop from trying to pounce on her despite the barrier, being visibly affected by her verbal brutality against Harry and Hermione and his family) a blood traitor—

 

It’s three days of it, but by the end of it, they have some solid clues and ideas about where Malfoy is being kept, that they might be able to expand on and eventually narrow down a proper, fixed area.

 

When they return to the Weasleys, they all walk into Harry and Ron’s room like a trio of ghosts, drained of every drop of energy and aching in old places where wounds have been ripped open again, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny staring worriedly after them.

 

Hermione falls asleep curled up to Ron in his bed, who kisses her goodnight on the lips gently and promptly follows her. Harry watches them, feeling strangely hollow and lonely like something rotting in his chest, feeling a desperate need for someone to hold after the long and exhausting day, and wonders if it’d be appropriate if he went looking for Ginny at this time of night, despite feeling like he could barely move.

 

Sometimes Harry looks at her and feels a sort of strangeness, like something’s been misplaced inside of him and something’s not the same between them anymore. He doesn’t know if it’s him or her or them or the war, but he feels it, and sometimes he gets the feeling that she feels it too, the way she looks at him now with a lot less of that spark and light he remembers seeing in her brown eyes, and the way they don’t talk as easily. Maybe they’ve just lost too much of themselves in the war and they don’t have it in them anymore to feel as much. Harry knows he did.

 

Harry knows he loves her, though, and knows she loves him too, and whatever this is, he wants to smooth it out, knows he wants to be with her.

 

It turns out that he doesn’t have to go to her, because she comes to him instead.

 

She slips in through the door, standing half in and half out for a moment as she leans against the doorframe behind her. Seeing Harry awake, she walks inside fully, closing the door behind her.

 

“Hey,” she says, nearly whispering as she glances briefly at the pair cuddled on Ron’s bed. She smiles a little in fond amusement.

 

“Hey,” Harry says back.

 

She comes over to sit on the edge of his bed carefully. “I saw you when you came in. You all looked terrible,” she tells him. “I was worried.”

 

He smiles a little and takes her hand, too tired for words. He pulls her and she comes easily, laying down against his chest.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ginny says softly, open and willing to listen.

 

Harry shakes his head. “Not really.” He sounds as drained as he feels.

 

Ginny presses her lips gently to his in a comforting kiss, reassuring him of her presence and love, and holds his hand. She falls asleep without letting go.

 

Harry’s so tired, but he can’t sleep. He thinks of Sirius a lot, all the old sores bleeding and open again, and he thinks of Malfoy a lot.

 

He thinks of Sirius, and the way his godfather would hold him to his chest and talk to him about his past with his father and be there to listen and advise, and the way he held his face between his hands and said, _you look so much like your father_.

 

_Except your eyes._

 

Harry had laughed and finished it for him, having already heard it one too many times, “I have my mother’s eyes.”

 

He missed him so much it left him sick and aching and hollow.

 

 

Malfoy is the last thing he thinks about before he falls into slumber. He thinks of him in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, crying, and then bleeding in the water (because of _Harry_ ), and then he thinks of him at the Astronomy Tower, terrified, lowering his wand at Dumbledore’s soothing words. He thinks of him in his vision, when Voldemort was hurting him, and he thinks of him at the Malfoy Manor, the empty, gaunt eyes before he returned to himself, the disgusting treatment of him by Rowle and Greyback, and him looking small in his mother’s arms and asking Harry to help him and watching Harry Disapparate without him through weary silver eyes, believing that Harry left because he couldn’t be bothered with him.

 

He wishes he had found a way to save him then. Right then and there. He should have gotten him out along with everyone else somehow instead of leaving him there for weeks more to get hurt.

 

Harry feels the dread and nausea pooling into his stomach as he wonders what he might find tomorrow.

 

He wonders if he might find anything at all.

 

 _No_ , Harry thinks firmly. He didn’t want to think about that. He couldn’t think about that. Besides, Yaxley had said it, didn’t he? They had to keep him alive if they were to use him as leverage against the Malfoys.

 

It didn’t stop him from dreading what he _will_ find, however.

 

**…**

 

That night, he dreams of finding Malfoy cold and dead, his corpse bonelessly sprawled across the ground of the Malfoy Manor as the hazy form of his mother sat beside him, crying and wailing in her mourn and grief. Draco’s silver eyes are lifeless and unseeing up at Harry, a residual tinge of resignation softening them.

 

It’s Narcissa’s voice screaming at him.

 

_He’s dead because you left him to die!_

 

_How could you?_

 

_Did you not think him deserving to be saved too?_

 

 _That’s not true_ , Harry’s trying to tell her, lungs constricting until he can’t breathe.

 

_I wanted to. I wanted to so badly._

 

_Not a day went by that I didn’t think of him._

 

She stops crying, flushed and wet face straightening, cold and blank.

 

_Well, he’s still dead, isn’t he?_

 

**...**

 

Ron, Harry and Hermione stand outside the large and dilapidated three-story building. This is as far as their Apparition takes them, which means that the inside of it is warded against it.

 

“Ready?” Harry asks. Ron and Hermione nod in affirmation, keeping their wands in their hands.

 

 

" _Alohomora,_ " Hermione whispers, wand pointed at the door.

 

They heard talking from a room to the left of the hallway. Ron suggested they split up, but it seemed too dangerous in a refuge of Death-Eaters, so Harry refused. They had a better chance at fighting them off together.

 

Upon moving to the right of the length of the divided Hall, one came out of a room and saw them, staggered back in shock for a second before his mouth opened—

 

“ _Silencio!”_ Hermione whispers quickly, wand pointed at him.

 

“ _Petrificus totalus_!” Harry mutters promptly.

 

They levitate him over and hide him behind the curtains.

 

Getting to the cellar at the basement was the easy part. Harry remembers the flash of the metal door from his dreams.

 

This is it.

 

This is where they’ll find him.

 

The metal door opens only from the outside, by turning a wheel. It makes a loud, grinding noise.

 

Harry sees Malfoy as soon as they open the door.

 

And then all Harry can see is the nightmares and images he’s had. Harry freezes and senses Ron and Hermione freeze beside him too.

 

Malfoy lays on the other side of the room, hunched in on himself bonelessly. He’s wearing the same shirt Harry saw him in at the Manor, but it hangs off him even more than he remembered.

 

Harry is the first to break out of it and run forward, skidding across the floor on his knees at the last split-second. He grabs Malfoy and rolls him over on his back. Malfoy slumps down with Harry’s hands, completely malleable, his grey eyes gaunt and empty again, unseeing and unmoving like at the Manor, like in his nightmare when he’s—

 

He reaches for his neck, and Malfoy’s cold, as cold as he was in his nightmare, and Harry goes cold inside too as soon as he feels it. He can’t find his pulse, only pale skin that’s not beating under his palm and something in him rattles hard, his gut clenching like it might bleed.

 

“C’mon,” Harry murmurs. He shifts his palm again. He vaguely notices Hermione rushing over to slide in next to him, Ron standing at the door on watch.

 

And there it is, the low throb of it. Harry nearly folds over in the billow of relief washing down on him, all the air held in his lungs rushing out of him in one large, shuddering exhale. Hermione touches his back comfortingly.

 

He reaches for his chest, and feels the rise and fall of it, just to reassure himself again that Malfoy is, indeed, alive.

 

Harry casts a simple cleaning charm over him and a nourishing spell.

 

Malfoy’s cold, his ill and malnourished body not being able to generate enough heat and hardly having any cover against the beginnings of the winter season, curled up under tattered remains of a cloak that, Harry realizes, resembles very closely to Professor Snape’s.

 

He casts a warming spell on him, but he’s not sure how long it lasts on a unhealthy and sickly body. “Do we have anything warm? A blanket?”

 

Hermione shakes his head, looking distressed and remorseful over not having thought of it before coming here. She then nods at Harry. “Your jacket?”

 

Harry quickly shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over his front.

 

He looks over to Ron, about to ask him for help in carrying Malfoy.

 

“Ron, you mind—"

 

And then remembers the conversation the week before. He knows Ron wouldn’t hurt Malfoy in any way, especially not when Malfoy’s in the state he’s in, but Harry also doesn’t know if he would find it in him to be as careful with him as he needs to be. Perhaps having two wands on defense is better.

 

“Nevermind. I’ll get him.”

 

Ron is staring at Malfoy unfathomably, his forehead pinched in something perhaps nearing pity, or something unsettled and disturbed. He looks away when he notices Harry's looking at him too.

 

Harry pushes his arms under Malfoy’s back and beneath his knees, lifting him up. Even with all the loss in his mass, though, he’s somewhat heavy.

 

“ _Levent onus,_ ” Hermione mumbles, wand pointing at Malfoy.

 

Harry looks up at her inquisitively.

 

“To make something, or someone, light in weight,” she explains.

 

Harry lifts Malfoy up again and it’s a lot like picking up air.

 

“Thanks,” he says gratefully. He pulls Malfoy up to his body, cradling the taller boy carefully against his chest, and stands up slowly.

 

They make their way out, but the grinding noise of the door might have alerted them, because they come out. When they see the first one, they duck into the room beside him, guarding themselves, wands out.

 

Harry places Malfoy down across his own legs quickly and pulls out his own wand, squeezing himself back against the wall. He only vaguely realizes his tightening grip around the pale boy in his grasp, fingers clutching at the jacket around him, Harry’s head turned to the side as he tries to listen for any sound or noise, any indication of their next move.

 

All is silent.

 

Ron slides forward, peering around the corner to get a look.

 

“Three,” he says. He sees three of them. They don’t know how many more there are.

 

He sudden jolts back, eyes widening, as a flash of green light shoots past him and dissipates upon finding no target.

 

And then all hell breaks loose. The room is a mixture of bright glowing colors, flashes and bolts of light that are accompanied by yells and utterances of spells from both sides, Ron, Hermione and Harry hurling in their own flashes and bolts of light wherever possible, every few seconds.

 

They get a split second time of warning as a voice booms, “ _Bombarda Maxima!_ ”

 

“BLOODY HELL!”

 

They all scrabble up and throw themselves further into the room, falling down as the burst of energy and force impacts them and shoves them off their feet. Harry shields Malfoy from the radiating heat of the explosive spell with his body, gripping him tighter as he huddles over him, pressing his face into Harry’s own shoulder with a hand to the back of his hair to protect his eyes and face.

 

Harry coughs and chokes on smoke, arm covering his nose, Hermione and Ron too from beside him. He raises himself up on his palms, looking down at Malfoy through the fog radiating into the room. He doesn’t twitch throughout all the commotion, and nausea lurches in Harry’s gut, feeling like he was staring down at his corpse.

 

They hurt him something bad, didn’t they? For him to become this way?

 

Footsteps are coming closer, thuds and scrapes of hands pushing off rubble and debri of the wall away. They all look at each other, holding down their coughs and breaths with hands or arms clamped over their mouths, and have the same idea.

 

Harry lets Malfoy down gently on the ground. Hermione puts a non-verbal spell on him, a protection against smoke inhalation, and does the same to the rest of them. Harry’s lungs clear up, no longer feeling the itch in his throat. They all stand up quietly, wand at the ready in their hands.

 

They all disperse sideways with light step, careful steps, except Harry.

 

There’s a glimpse of black through the smoke as someone traipses in, his wand out.

 

“Hand the Malfoy boy over,” the man drawls. Four other people spread out from behind him. “It’s your only chance of getting out of here alive.”

 

All the wands are pointed at Harry, who is most probably the only one visible to them.

 

The smoke clears slightly and he sees them, three of them he doesn’t entirely recognize, but the other two are Rowle and Dolohov.

 

Rowle grins, rotten teeth on display. “Well, well, well… look who we have here,” he mocks, cocks his head. “Harry Potter.”

 

Harry keeps silent, guarded as he eyes the white-haired man, a lurch of disgust in his gut and cold anger seeping through his chest. He stands still in front of Malfoy, prepared to ward off any spell thrown either of their way.

 

“Fancy seeing you here, Savior boy,” he sneers. “How about a little taste of the Killing Curse? Avada Kedav—"

 

“ _Expulso_!” 

 

“ _Baubillious_!” 

 

The two spells, thrown by Ron and Hermione simultaneously, with their combined impact,  hurl back all the Death-Eaters.

 

The trio walk forward with their wands out guardedly, sliding through smoke. Most of the Death-Eaters are unconscious, their eyes closed, some having bleeding heads and one of them awake but dazed. They'll have to alert all the Aurors before they wake up of their whereabouts.

 

Harry turns around and runs back to Malfoy. He falls to his knees beside him, grips him by the back and under the knees and lifts him up easily.

 

Ron, Hermione and Harry run out of the bare study room, dodging sprawled limbs and unconscious bodies.

 

" _Petrificus totalus_!" Hermione's voice yells abruptly from up ahead as a Death-Eater ambushes them, and then promptly drops to the ground like stone.

 

And then they're out of the house, running and running until they're standing in the expanse of the field, turning around and looking back, Harry having ran so fast he's tripped down to his knees, panting and gasping. Ron grips Harry by the shoulder and Hermione by the hand and Apparates them out of there just as three more Death-Eaters rush out.

 

Harry nearly bowls over by the sudden leap, holding the body in his grasp tightly against himself. Malfoy's head is against his shoulder, although Harry barely feels it due to the charm that's made him as light as a feather. When he looks down to his face, he doesn't find an empty silver gaze staring at nothing, because Malfoy's darkened eyes are closed, sleeping. He looks more peaceful, better like this.

 

"How in the _bloody_ hell did he fall asleep through all that?" Ron mutters.

 

Harry laughs softly, so terribly relieved, as he feels the rise and fall of the back against his arm.


	5. The Tears Shed

"The state of his muscles and joints show signs of repeated inflictions of the Cruciatus curse, muscular atrophy due to long periods of physical inactivity that will render him immobile if—"

 

"When," Harry interrupts.

 

The Healer, Areen, looks uncertain for a moment.

 

"When," she complies anyway. "he wakes up. There has been severe sexual abuse. There are scars of countless lacerations and markings."

 

Harry swallows hard, a doleful frown drawing his brows together. He glances over at the sick and hurt boy for a moment, lying motionlessly on the bed.

 

The Healer sighs then, like she can't hold off any longer. "Mr. Potter, you ought to know... there is a high chance that your friend will not make it."

 

Harry shakes his head, brows furrowed. "You can't just give up on him like that."

 

"You have to understand," The Healer answers, clinically patient. "The dissociative state he is currently in is no normal reaction to grave trauma. It is, in fact, not a reaction to his trauma, but the workings of a rather rare and complex potion. Have you heard of Alucinatio?"

 

"No."

 

"It mentally places the user in a highly realistic and vivid dream-state consisting of their greatest desires. It sounds lovely until you understand that it leaves the user incapable of anything in the real world, including eating, drinking, moving, getting proper sleep and essentially taking care of themselves. He's been kept on nutritional spells all this time, but it's ineffective in the long run and can only go so far. His body is deteriorating, not only from the lack of its basic necessities, but from the magic that's placing too much stress on his body."

 

Harry is so still he can't even feel himself breathe, staring at her, unable to process for a moment.

 

He manages to force out the question, "How... how long does he have?"

 

"At this point, a month at best," she says. "The cure is said to be the tears shed of anyone he craves the love of. If you know anyone who might fit the criteria, do bring them over."

 

Harry finds his best friends sitting huddled together in the waiting room, Hermione's head on Ron's shoulder, dozing off.

 

When Ron sees Harry, he straightens, the movement waking Hermione who lifts her head off his shoulder, blinking somewhat groggily.

 

As soon as she sees Harry's face, she frowns worriedly.

 

"Harry, what's wrong?"

 

They both stand up slowly as Harry reaches them, concern and alarm etched in their movement.

 

"It's... it's not good," Harry tells them lowly. "They've given him a month's time, only."

 

There is so much he needs to explain, but his head is foggy and exhausted and he can't think properly, can't think of how to relay all that he's learned.

 

"Have you heard of Alucinatio?" is what he starts with.

 

"The Daydream potion," Hermione says. "The person who intakes it experiences very vivid and realistic daydreams of all they could ever want, but is essentially in a severely catatonic state out in the external world, incapable of any basic functions."

 

Harry nods. "Somebody's given it to Malfoy." He remembers the tattered remains of a black cloak wrapped around Malfoy. "I think it might have been Professor Snape."

 

They take a minute to process that.

 

"And... the cure?" Ron asks.

 

"Tears of anyone the experiencer craves love of," Hermione answers.

 

"His mother?" Ron guesses.

 

"It didn't work at the Manor," Harry answers. “Not with her.”

 

"Why did it work with Lucius and not Narcissa?" Ron questions.

 

"Craving implies not having something," Hermione tells him. "You can't crave something you already have, you know? So it has to be someone who didn't reciprocate Malfoy's affection, or even just made him feel that they didn't.”

 

"So that's what it was there, at the Manor," Ron mumbles. "Well, I was right, wasn't I then?"

 

Harry and Hermione glance at Ron.

 

"Right about what?" Harry asks.

 

Ron shrugs. "I kept telling you guys that the prat probably had a bucket load of daddy issues." 

 

"Ron," Hermione warns.

 

Ron hunches slightly under her scolding glare, looking sheepish and apologetic.

 

“It's quite a difficult one, wouldn’t you say?" Hermione muses. "If it really is someone who doesn't care for you, I mean. How do you make someone who doesn't love you cry for you?"

 

“We only know of Lucius so far.” Harry once had a dream through his connection with Voldemort, in which Lucius pleaded to have his son back, the typically cowardly and pathetic man even going so far as offering to take Draco’s place. "But there hasn't been a trace of him since the War ended."

 

 

"We ought to get ahold of everyone that was in his circle, then,” Hermione says. "Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Gregory Goyle, and Theodore Nott. They could tell us something, maybe someone else that we don't know of?"

 

"If we're thinking in terms of romantic love, I'd bet on Pansy Parkinson," Ron inputs. "I don't think we've seen him hang around any other girl as much. Not that I know of, at least."

 

Harry and Hermione nod agreeably.

 

**...**

 

"You guys don't have to do this, you know," Harry says. "I’ll stay with him and find someone to wake him. Just make something up to Molly and Arthur for me, will you?"

 

They've already done so much, already risked their lives too much for Harry, and now once more, they followed him into a room full of Death-Eaters so that he wouldn't have to do any of it alone. Harry thinks, after the war, the least they deserve is to move on with their lives, live it in every way that they want to, and while Malfoy's life mattered much, Harry would rather take it upon himself than put it on them too.

 

Besides that, Molly and Arthur Weasley have been very overprotective over their children as well as over Harry and Hermione, especially after having already lost a child in a war. Harry doesn't want to leave them in panic and worry if they were to find their rooms empty at this time of night, and while they wouldn't be unsympathetic if they knew of the circumstances, Harry knows, despite their ages, they would go to quite extreme lengths to ensure that they think twice about risking their lives again. If Ron and Hermione were there, however, they'd be able to make up something for Harry.

 

Ron and Hermione share a look, communicating in some way that Harry doesn't entirely understand right now.

 

It's Ron who speaks, saying, "Mate... we didn't risk our lives to go save the prat only to leave him now. We’re sticking around until we can make sure he'll live, whether you like it or not. Although, I _would_ say we ought to go back right now. Just so we don't get in trouble with Mum and Dad.”

 

Hermione nods. "Someone needs to stay with Malfoy though, just in case. Ron and I will try to get in touch with his friends and get back to you."

 

"So, we'll see you tomorrow."

 

**…**

 

The only person they have any luck with is Theodore Nott.

 

He's now sitting on a beside Malfoy's bed, quietly observing him and processing everything he's just learned. They've told him the gist of the entire situation.

 

"He's going to die then?" Nott asks in a low voice, his face pinched ruefully.

 

Harry keeps silent, letting that be his affirmation. He then takes a step towards him.

 

"Has he ever mentioned anyone?" Harry asks. "Anyone he might have deeply cared about or—or had feelings for?"

 

"We weren't close enough to share stuff like that with one another," Nott says. "He was close to Zabini and Parkinson though, so you ought to ask them if you can find them. Especially Pansy, I'd say. They always did seem a little too close. I know she had feelings for him, but I don't know if he returned them or not."

 

"Do you know _how_ we might be able to get in contact with Parkinson and Zabini?"

 

"Not really, no," Nott says. "Haven't been able to reach them myself. It's the case with a lot of Slytherins nowadays since, you know, they haven't exactly been popular after the war. So most of them are trying to stay low."

 

Harry feels the dip of disappointment in his chest. "Thank you," he says anyway. Nott shrugs in casual acknowledgment of his polite gratitude.

 

Nott then leans towards Malfoy, touching his shoulder. "I'll come by whenever I can, you hear?"

 

**...**

 

On the news one morning, there is a small column which has the headline, " _Death-Eater Found and Killed By Aurors, Wife to be on trial."_

 

Lucius Malfoy had made a desperate attempt to escape, from what the article says. He had attacked one of the surrounding Aurors and was killed in the Auror's self-defense. Narcissa Malfoy had refused to make any comment.

 

In the picture, she stares up at him, her eyes hollow with grief and ringed with scarlet.

 

**...**

 

At the trial, Harry testifies on her behalf, emphasizing to the Wizengamot her crucial part in destroying Voldemort and ending the war. He pleads for leniency on her, and argues that while she had been associated with the Death-Eaters, most likely against her will because of her husband, she has never been one herself. Undoubtedly, this will soon be followed by another news headline, in which they announce the verdict of Wizengamaot and Narcissa's Malfoy's sentence, House Arrest for twenty years and confiscation of much of their wealth.

 

The Auror that is to escort her to the Manor allows Harry to take her aside for a moment in order to converse with her. He stands at a safe distance away from them, maintaining a close eye on his charge.

 

"Thank you," Narcissa says, being the one to speak first. She looks tired and aggrieved, but genuinely grateful. The perpetual upturned sneer that had once taken residence on her face is no longer there, now more humbled and weary by all that has happened, and still as graceful and composed as ever despite it all.

 

"It was only right," Harry says simply. "I wouldn't be here because of you. And the world would not be safe from Voldemort." She swallows and closes her eyes at the name, but doesn't lose her composure. The name means all the terrible things that has happened to her, just as it does for Harry, for so many people.

 

She opens them again, lifts her chin and straightens her back as she heaves in a slow, calming breath. "I wished him dead. You were the only one who could make sure of that."

 

Harry nods.

 

He swallows. He thinks of telling her about Draco, he wants to, but what if they can't save him? What if she has to lose him anyway? Yet, he knows he has to. Maybe she will know just who they need for her son to awaken.

 

"Your son is saved," Harry says softly.

 

For a moment, there is no reaction, the same blank and weary expression fixated on her face, her body all held together. It's as if she hasn't processed the words, or she can't, like she isn't certain if she heard him right.

 

When it does seem to sink in, finally, there's a quiver, in her mouth and chin and forehead, a slight twist of her features.

 

And then, just like that, all the grace and composure is gone, her face crumpling painfully as she folds over at the abdomen, one of her hands shooting up to clamp over her mouth, the other to grip her middle. Harry's hands lurch forward to hold her arms, afraid that she is about to fall, and he's crouching over to see her.

 

From the corner of his eye, he sees the Auror step towards them hesitantly, before halting to a stop.

 

Narcissa lets go of herself to grip at one of his arms as she gasps out a hard sob, her breaths shuddering and her tears falling, her shoulders slumping over as if all the tension in her muscles have fallen away. Her flushed face is sagging with immense, painful relief, her eyes closed.

 

She swallows hard, not opening her eyes. She removes her hand from her mouth, trying to regain composure. Narcissa seems to be struggling for words, her face twitching, nearly crumpling again, "My... my baby boy is..."

 

"We got him out," Harry tells her. Narcissa's eyes water again, and her lips twitch into a wobbling, brittle smile. "He's at St. Mungos... but you should know he's not out of the woods yet, Mrs. Malfoy."

 

She blinks, her brows furrowed. "What... what has-"

 

"We're working on it, I assure you." Harry doesn't have the heart right now to tell her the severity of the situation, given the way she's crumbled just now. "It's going to sound rather strange, but may I ask you something?"

 

Narcissa shakes her head at his hesitation. "Anything."

 

Harry nods gratefully. "Is there anyone Draco is fond of, romantically or otherwise, but the object of his affection may not have reciprocated it, or even just made him feel that they didn't?"

 

Narcissa's face is pinched, as if she isn't entirely certain why he needs to know. She still answers, "No one besides his father..." Her throat convulses at the mention of her husband, something raw flashing in her eyes. "as far as I know. Draco tells me everything, so I'm fairly certain he would tell me if there was any such person in his life."

 

Harry nods, trying not to show the sinking feeling in his chest. "Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy."

 

She shakes her head, her face breaking into a huge, overwhelmed, watery smile. She leans forward and presses a grateful kiss to his cheek. "Thank _you,_ Harry. For everything. And please, call me Narcissa."

 

 

_..._

 

"I should have gotten him out," Harry mumbles into the fingers of his clasped hands, elbows on the edge of the hospital bed. "when we were there at the Manor."

 

It's been three weeks now. They've had no luck with finding any of Malfoy's friends, and Malfoy is growing thinner and sicklier, bruises pushing his darkened eyes into his sockets even more so as his weakness grows. He stares at the ceiling, blinking blankly every now and then, until his eyes close and he falls asleep. Harry knows now that it doesn't last longer than two or three hours.

 

"There wasn't enough time, Harry," Hermione soothes. She sounds soft and sad. "He was on the other side of the Manor. You couldn't have gotten both yourselves out. And Harry, you have to remember that with him bearing the Dark Mark, Voldemort's eyes on him—" They could have done something about that, maybe, Harry doesn't know. "It just wasn't very feasible at the time."

 

"I should have tried harder," Harry says quietly. 

 

He doesn't know what he's going to tell Narcissa.

 

"I know you wanted to," she murmurs, gently placing her hands on his shoulders, tucking his hair behind his ear.  "I know you wanted to so bad you hardly slept for weeks after because you couldn't."

 

"Does it matter when he's going to be dead?"

 

Hermione stays silent, her hand now still. Harry thinks she might be trying to control herself, pressing her lips together to stop her face from crumpling.

 

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

 

Harry feels bad for making her sound like that, so he removes one hand from his mouth to take her hand from his shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. Hermione kisses the top of his head, and they let each other's hand go.

 

"We'll get you something to eat," Hermione says softly. "And don't say you're not hungry. It's not a question."

 

Harry nods, only because he can't be bothered to argue. Malfoy blinks at the ceiling, gaunt and colourless, dreaming of dreams that won't let him live long enough to make them come true.

 

He hears her footfalls, growing fainter and fainter behind him, leaving Harry alone with Malfoy.

 

Harry thinks of all that he's seen and heard, finally letting himself think, finally letting himself imagine the horrors Malfoy must have lived at the hands of ruthless and brutal men who went to the most extreme lengths to break him.

 

Horrors that he suffered for weeks, and then more weeks again, those weeks he wouldn't have had to if Harry had saved him back at the Malfoy Manor. He thinks of his body shrinking into itself to fit into his mother's arms, his lips soundlessly murmuring a plea for help to Harry, his weary and resigned gaze on Harry as he leaves him behind, not helping him at all, to save his own life.

 

He's been telling himself everything Hermione's told him.

 

There wasn't enough time.

 

He was on the opposite side of the room. There was no way that Harry would have gotten to him.

 

Harry wanted to, he really did, he just couldn't. It wasn't possible. They were on the run. They had to find the Horcruxes, destroy them all so they could destroy Voldemort.

 

Harry would have gotten caught too, which wouldn't have helped either of them, because Harry would have been dead and Malfoy would have gone straight back to the cell, his end result the same except with Harry gone completely out of the picture.

 

Harry doesn't know what was foolish to believe now, to believe that he could have saved Malfoy, could have found a way to beat the odds, or to believe that there was no way he could have saved Malfoy then at all.

 

But he knows that Malfoy's going to die believing that Harry left him to die, that his life and his pain didn't matter to him, that the last thing he'll remember of the real world is the inside of a filthy, dark and dank cell that smelled of his blood and sweat and anguish.

 

Harry wonders what he's seeing in his mind. He's skin and bones, face as white as the sheets he's under, his body having been broken until Harry brought him here and they put him back together, healed his body day by day to avoid placing too much stress on it, and are now working on his muscle atrophy due to his long-term immobility and the effects it will have on it, even though nobody knows if he'll need to be treated for that or not.

 

He's a bit startled to realize that his eyes are burning, his vision blurring, so lost in his reverie that he hardly noticed the sting in his nose of the oncoming tears.

 

And then it's hard to breathe, his lungs constricted and his heart raw and aching, his stomach burning with remorse and guilt.

 

Harry unclasps his hands and runs them down his face, blinking fast and hard. He did not mean for this to happen. He never wanted Malfoy to die, certainly not like this, not after suffering terrible things nobody deserves to suffer, things that left his body bleeding and bruised and broken, paralyzed and stuck in a fabricated and fictional life that isn't happening right now, the illusions of which are destroying his body out here in reality.

 

Harry stands up, glasses skewing upwards as he rubs his thumb and finger down the bridge of his nose to check for any fallen tears. He blinks, desperately craving the fresh air outside.

 

Tears slip past his eyes and his glasses when he blinks again, dripping directly onto the bed sheets when his head bows. His overwhelmed mind only vaguely registers the miniscule dark spots of water on the sheets as he turns and walks out.

 


	6. A Visit to Narcissa Malfoy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for description of torture, hints of homophobia/homophobic language (due to Draco's upbringing). Please beware!
> 
> There will be more dream flashbacks from the next chapter.

When Harry returns to Malfoy's hospital room, there are grinded cries and feeble, hoarse screams of, _get away from me, don't touch me,_ followed by pleaful gasps of _please, don't_ —

 

Healer Areen is yelling, "Get that bloody calming draught already, will you?"

 

Harry runs the last of the distance over to the room, the room curving over to come into view until he stands in the doorway, watching wide-eyed as Malfoy, very much awake and moving,  thrashes and writhes against the nurses pinning him down and touching his shoulder and saying,  _please, sir, you must calm down, you're only hurting yourself_. His face is red and contorted in pain and tears, hardly able to move but using every bit of energy he has in him to try and escape whatever dangerous predicament he feels he's in.

 

Malfoy sobs, writhing in agonizing jerks that only seem to be causing him even more pain. His thin chest is jouncing with panic and exertion. "Please, don't—"

 

Harry doesn't know whether to go forward or stand silently, not wanting to make things worse, but when Malfoy catches sight of Harry in the doorway, his flushed face smoothes slightly over his still crumpled mouth and chin. That's a good sign, Harry thinks, hopes, a good sign, and perhaps seeing a familiar face in the midst of all these unfamiliar faces, no matter who, is exactly what he needs, so Harry strides forward, without thinking much else, half-expecting Malfoy to stop him.

 

Malfoy doesn't. His silver gaze follows him, his lashes wet as he blinks, still thrashing but only half-heartedly now, mostly focused on Harry.

 

"It's okay it's okay it's okay," Harry's murmuring as he reaches the bed, the gathered nurses stepping aside to make room and letting their hands on Malfoy's shoulders be replaced by Harry's hands. "It's okay. Nobody's going to hurt you here, alright? They only want to help." Malfoy stills completely, to his utter surprise, but he takes the win. 

 

"You came for me," Malfoy whispers, raspy and pained, his hands shaking next to his head, seemingly trying to lift painstakingly but not being able to go far. His face is twisting again, looking terribly overwhelmed. Harry's chest feels strange in his chest at the words, the way he says that, like when he watched Harry leave him behind, as if he had already decided that Harry would never come for him the moment he asked.

 

"Of course," Harry says. He thinks of saying, _of course I did_ , as if it should have been obvious and Malfoy shouldn't have doubted it, but it hadn't been obvious to Malfoy and of course he'd have doubted it. So instead, he says, "I owed it to your mother."

 

The nurse has finally brought over the calming draught. She drips a few drops of it onto Malfoy's lips, who jerks and begins to grow more distressed again, trying to shake his head to get the liquid off of his lips, but it absorbs and soon enough his eyes are rolling back in his head, rigid body slowly relaxing into the bed.

 

**…**

 

"But how, Harry? It's just not _possible_." Hermione is glad to hear the news, but simultaneously can't seem to get past her confusion. According to her, it just couldn't have happened on its own. Harry hardly thinks it matters. "There is only one cure for this potion."

 

Ron seems to agree with Harry's internal thoughts. "Does it matter? 'Least the prancing ferret's awake and alive, you know?"

 

"Was there anyone else in the room with you?" Hermione asks.

 

"I wasn't in the room at all, actually," Harry tells her. He'd been out to get some fresh air whenever Malfoy must have waken, so he has no clue if there could have been someone else there. "I don't know, 'Mione. I was out for about fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. So unless that's enough time... perhaps it works within a certain range."

 

Hermione considers that for a moment. Even so, she sounds unsure and unsatisfied, "Yes. Maybe. Very well then. I suppose we ought to just be glad that Malfoy's awake. Has the Healer told you if he's out of danger now?"

 

Harry nods. "There isn't as much stress on his already weakened body anymore. They can administer proper nutrition and fluids to him now and heal his body with spells more freely, although Healer Areen still believes they'll have to be careful not to do too much. All in all, he'll be alright, she said."

 

"Well, this is it then, isn't it?" Ron says.

 

Harry pauses for a moment. He thinks of Malfoy being alone here, having no family or friends at his side to help him through all that has happened to him. Malfoy doesn't even know what's happened to his parents and godfather.

 

"Harry." Harry looks to Ron. Ron's taken Hermione's hand in his own, the tangle of their fingers rocking back and forth briefly as he does, and Hermione's looking at him, smiling like she does only for Ron. "Hermione and I… we've made a plan. Now that Malfoy's alright, I say we go to Australia with her. She wants to regain her parents' memories, you see, and I think we ought to be there to help her out."

 

Indecisive and lost, he says, rather un-eloquently, "I…" He glances back in the general direction of Malfoy's room. "I just… don't know."

 

Ron seems to get where Harry's head is at. "Harry, what more are we supposed to do for him? Do you really think he's going to want _us_ here?"

 

Harry doesn't _not_ want to go with Hermione. He wants to, definitely. He'd rather be with his best friends than be with someone that's probably going to spend his entire time chucking everything he can get his hands on at Harry from his hospital bed.

 

"I want to, yeah. D'you lot mind waiting one more day though?"

 

"Fine by us," Ron says. "But for what?"

 

Harry goes silent. The uncertainty begins to sink in again, as the thought of Malfoy having no one in this time becomes real again, particularly by having to say it out loud.

 

"He doesn't know," Harry says. "About his family."

 

The silence drapes heavily over them at that. Harry reckons they've already considered what Malfoy's going to wake up to in his life, but the idea seems to have become more real for them too. Hermione looks torn at the idea, and just as uncertain as Harry.

 

"D'you reckon we should just stay then?" Hermione asks, quiet. "It feels wrong to leave him when he already doesn't have anyone."

 

"We can't," Ron tells her, the only steady and certain voice between all three of them. "'Mione, I get… I get not wanting to leave him alone, because it's a shite time for him, but your parents… your aunt's said they're getting fretful and agitated, aren't they? Feeling like they can't remember something? Isn't this important too?"

 

Harry agrees with Ron. He doesn't want Hermione to hold off something as important and highly prioritised as her family, and Harry refuses to let her.

 

"You two are going," Harry says. "That's final. Just give me some time."

 

"Do you want us to come along tomorrow, Harry?" Hermione asks.

 

Harry doubts Malfoy would want so many people seeing him in a vulnerable state, certainly not after he hears of his family's fate. It'd be bad enough that he'd have to hear it from Harry, of all people, but to have two more people he hardly liked standing beside him…

 

"No. I'll… I'll talk to him. Less people, the better, you know?"

 

**…**

 

The next morning, Malfoy wakes up nearly an hour after Harry has sat down in the chair beside him, waiting.

 

Ron and Hermione are back at the Burrow, packing up all of their things for their travel to Australia soon. They had told Molly about their plans, and while somewhat reluctant at first to have them go so far, she eventually agreed in understanding of the importance of why they had to go.

 

Hermione spoke of having Ron meet them after they recover their memories (even as she sounded somewhat nervous as she said this, worried that they won't be able to), a soft, wistful smile on her lips as she says she reckons they're going to love him, and Ron, hopeful and grinning, asked her lightly,  _really_? Hermione didn't hesitate a second to confirm it.

 

Harry somewhat feels like a third-wheel around them at times. It gets somewhat lonely, seeing them, but he's mostly only happy for them. They always try not to let him feel left out, even now, and if nothing else, if Harry ends up not going (which his conscience seems more in favour of, even if logic isn't), at least Ron and Hermione will get to spend more time alone together.

 

He's also told Ginny everything, about the Manor and Malfoy and the potion. She was rather unhappy about the risk they all took to their lives, but at the end of it, she was just relieved that it all went alright.

 

George had known long before, when Harry went on his weekly visits to the Weasleys Wizardly Wheezes, having seen the wrecked state of Harry a week before Malfoy had awaken and forced the reason for it out of him. They're not planning on telling Molly and Arthur. It'd only make them upset and fretful over the what-ifs.

 

Malfoy still looks sickly and older, more worn and hollow, but he also appears strangely young in his sleep. Harry's never really noticed it underneath his perpetual sneer or deadpan, but he's got quite the delicate features. This delicacy is only enhanced in his slumber, making him appear tender, innocent, both odd words to associate with him. Malfoy's been the furthest thing from tender and innocent in all the years Harry has known him, having gone to great lengths and measures to make Harry and his friends' lives miserable, crossing every line possible with his jibes and taunts and nearly breaking all limits of their patience and emotional control.

 

And yet, here they are.

 

Both of them have saved the other's life once, despite it all, despite never having liked each other at all. What a strange concept.

 

Harry straightens up when Malfoy twitches, fingers and closed eyes first. His head rolls slightly then, turns towards Harry, and then finally blinks open after a few seconds, groggy and drowsy.

 

Harry briefly considers greeting him with a _morning_ , _Malfoy_ , out of politeness and civility, but it sounds too odd and out of place for them. He can't think of what to say.

 

Malfoy's eyes focus after a few more blinks and meet his, quicksilver into green.

 

There's that strange look again, only for the ghost of the two seconds Malfoy sees him at first, that look from the Manor again when Malfoy's father was trying to get him to identify Harry, and then it's gone, quickly as it came in the blink of an eye. Harry supposes he's only imagined it. It could be a number of things, really, even if he didn't.

 

The silence is awkward and uncertain, as if neither of them know what to do with themselves or each other. Harry doesn't know who's going to break the silence, but he hopes it's Malfoy because Harry certainly doesn't know how to start any normal conversations with him, but then he thinks perhaps Malfoy's hoping the same thing too, and then are they just supposed to—

 

It's Malfoy who speaks first.

 

"I…" Malfoy croaks. He clears his throat to clear his voice, and when he speaks again, he sounds more like himself. "I want my family."

 

Harry's eyes lower down before he could stop himself, unable to meet Malfoy's. He has to tell him, he knows he does, but he doesn't know _how_ to tell him that none of his family can be here because—

 

"My mother, and Severus, and..." Malfoy hesitates, swallowing, looking painfully vulnerable and brittle, all thin and tired. His voice becomes a mumble by the next few words. "My father, if he—if he's willing."

 

Harry's heart sinks to his feet, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to say the words weighing down his throat.

 

Malfoy's asked for three people, and two of them are dead, one of whom he doesn't even seem sure would have wanted to see him. Harry is finding it increasingly difficult to find his voice.

 

"Malfoy," Harry begins, and stops immediately. Malfoy looks at him, then, waiting for a response. Harry looks away. "Malfoy, your family can't… your mother's on House Arrest. Your father and—and Severus… they're… they're gone."

 

Silence reigns. When it persists too long, Harry raises his head tentatively. Malfoy is staring at Harry, blank and blinking slowly, and Harry wants to look away again, but he holds his ground. He sees Malfoy try to process it, his forehead beginning to furrow slightly, but it's as if he simply can't comprehend a word he's just heard.

 

"Where's my family?" Malfoy asks again, then, as if Harry's never said anything.

 

Harry suddenly feels helpless. He swallows hard, his heart pounding in his throat. "Malfoy… your mother can't be here because she's confined to her home on the Ministry's orders. And—and your father and Severus- they're no more. Voldemort—" Draco flinches violently. _Fuck._ He's already fucking it up. "Sorry. I'm sorry. You-Know-Who—he…he made Nagini poison Professor Snape. I-I don't know what happened to your father, just that the Aurors—"

 

Harry's voice fades, and he doesn't know if he can say any more. Malfoy's still staring at him like Harry's speaking Greek. 

 

And then something else is beginning to flood into Malfoy's gaze, a he slow blaze of fury and hurt and something like betrayal sinking into his pinched eyes. It lasts for a few seconds, before he sets his face into a cold expression, seemingly having come to some conclusion Harry's not aware of.

 

"Think this is funny, do you, Potter?" Malfoy's voice is low and simmering and nearly quivering, and Harry's frozen and confused. He's not sure what part of that sounded like Harry found any hilarity in it. Malfoy's face is stung red, and Harry can't tell if it's anger or embarrassment or tears. "Bet you and your friends had a field day with what happened at the Manor too—"

 

Malfoy's seemingly forgotten, or is perhaps still unaware of, the fact that it was Harry and his friends who had gotten him out in the first place because none of them ever found any of it to be funny in the slightest, and that most normal people's idea of a joke isn't telling someone their family's either dead or arrested. Harry can only put it down to Malfoy's overwhelmed and fragile mind searching for any sort of explanation, even the most irrational and bizarre, in its denial and defense against facing any more trauma and pain.

 

Harry shakes his head. "Malfoy—"

 

"Sod off, Potter," Malfoy grits out, but there's a tremor of restrained emotion in it, almost as if he already knows he's in denial and his newly devised mental defense is fragile at best, but not willing to let it go. "I don't need any of your shite right now."

 

He tries to twist around to turn his face away from Harry, which looks about a moment away from crumpling, but it only ends up in causing him pain, so he stops and lays still, swallowing and closing his eyes, his face straight.

 

"I want my family," Malfoy murmurs, but he isn't talking to Harry. He's talking to himself, in a sort of way that sounds as if he's used to it and comfortable with it, in the daunting and endless silence of a cold, lonely cell. His eyes are closed. His voice is even quieter after, and Harry catches bits and pieces of 'busy' and 'Dark Lord' and 'come soon'.

 

Harry's chest feels like someone is shoving a boulder over it, and he doesn't know what to do, doesn't think Malfoy's ready to accept it and there isn't any point in pushing it right now when he's like this.

 

"Malfoy." Malfoy opens his eyes at the sound of his soft voice, red-rimmed and flat. All Harry can manage to say is, "I'm sorry."

 

Harry thinks about leaving then, letting Malfoy deal with what he needs to, but he can't make himself move. Malfoy's staring at the ceiling, but something in his eyes has died now, and he almost looks likes that again, like when he was dreaming of a life better than this. His forehead twitches, a glimpse of a pained, sorrowful frown, his lips quivering, before his face smooths cold and his eyes become hollow again.

 

"Leave me."

 

Harry's rooted to the spot. "I don't think you should be—"

 

"Leave me," Malfoy repeats.

 

Harry is stuck between doing as Malfoy wants and not wanting to leave him alone like this, when he clearly needs someone. Ultimately, Harry decides it might be best to just go by what Malfoy's demanding, rather than to push unwanted company onto him. If Harry was in his position, he'd hardly want to deal with something like this in Malfoy's presence and would prefer his privacy.

 

Harry turns around and walks to the door, and walks out.

 

But he stands outside for a moment, two, silently leaning back against the wall beside the doorway of Malfoy's room. He isn't sure why he does, or what he's looking for, just that he is and it doesn't feel right to walk away like this.

 

It's nearly a minute after that Harry hears it. A sort of gutted, mournful cry, the sound of being ripped apart in two from the inside. It melds into a haunting gasp of a sob that sounds like it's shuddered throughout Malfoy's entire body and out throughout the room and collided painfully into Harry's chest. And then it's silent.

 

And then he's just crying, just crying and crying and crying like it's never going to end, muffled, wracking sobs that make his breaths hitch and gasp until he's crying so hard he's no longer making a sound, sharp inhales in between when he runs out of air.  Harry sits down outside the room, dropping slow and heavy against the wall. His head falls back softly, hands loose on his pulled up knees, and he listens. He stays sitting there until it goes completely quiet.

 

**...**

 

"You two go on," Harry says, swallowing down the remorse. Ron and Hermione's faces take on similar expressions of disappointment and understanding in equal measures. "I can't come… 'Mione, I'm sorry. I wish I could be there for you—"

 

Hermione shakes her head. "Harry—"

 

"Two of the three people he asked for are dead," Harry's mumbling. "His mother can't be there either. None of his friends know, and they can't even be found, and he might have Nott, but Nott's so busy he's hardly here—"

 

"Mate, you don't have to explain," Ron says, looking somewhat rueful, perhaps in remembrance of their past fight regarding Malfoy. Harry wonders of his change from their last conversation, perhaps also realizing the utterly lonely and tragic situation of their rival, or ex-rival, he supposes.

 

"It's alright, Harry," Hermione says. She touches his arm. "In fact, it's more than alright, isn't it? You only want to do something good."

 

"I don't want to not be there," Harry says.

 

"We know," Ron says. "But 'Mione and I will figure it out. And hey, once we get her parents' memories back, we might have some couple time for ourselves after, if you know what I mean." He waggles his eyebrows.

 

Harry smiles slightly as Hermione's face flushes red and she smacks him on the shoulder, scandalized. "Ronald!"

 

"Ow," Ron whines, rubbing his shoulder with a wince.

 

Hermione then turns to Harry, pleased and satisfied. "Anyways, Harry, like Ron said, we'll figure it out, so don't worry about it. Malfoy needs someone more than we need you right now." Harry reckons the usage of 'need' is somewhat debatable, but Malfoy was hurting and pushing him away, because he wanted his family and Harry wasn't them, but maybe, Harry hopes, he might come around to accept Harry's company some time later. If the way he had calmed upon seeing Harry after he awoke was anything to go by, there may be some hope.

 

They bid each other farewell with, " _see you soon_." Harry and Ron hug each other, and then Harry and Hermione hug each other, lasting two seconds longer when Hermione finds it a little hard to let go. Harry smiles fondly. When they pull back, he gives her a brotherly kiss to her forehead.

 

"I'll owl you every day," Harry promises.

 

Hermione and Ron hold hands, and with simultaneous waves that Harry returns, they Disapparate. They'll go to the Burrow first, get their suitcases and then travel to Australia by Muggle transport. Harry wonders how Ron, who has never been on an aeroplane before, is going to feel about it. 

 

**...**

 

Harry turns on the TV, recently installed Muggle technology in St. Mungos hospital and several other hospitals of the Wizarding World to provide entertainment to those who sat in wait for their loved ones or friends or, well, ex-childhood rivals. The news is on, but Harry keeps it on low, reading the banners of text at the bottom.

 

"Still here, are you?"

 

Harry startles slightly at the sound of Malfoy's voice. He turns the TV off and looks at him.

 

"Haven't you fulfilled your debt, for whatever it is, to my mother?" Malfoy asks dryly. It occurs to Harry that Malfoy has no idea what his mother really did, what a crucial component she was in saving the Wizarding World. Malfoy should know. "Are you not supposed to be gone now?"

 

"You should know, your mother saved my arse and lied straight to Vol— You-Know-Who's face about me being dead where I wasn't," Harry tells him. "She's a big reason why he's dead. And no, I'm not—"

 

"He's dead?"

 

Malfoy's voice is soft, shaky, almost undaring to hope, or as if he's afraid he might be heard and Voldemort might swoop in himself to take him away again. Harry wonders if Malfoy's been waiting all this time for that to happen, helpless and silently terrified.

 

Harry's voice goes soft too. "He's dead, Malfoy."

 

**…**

 

"They're telling me you aren't eating," Harry says. "You realize you're very underweight, right? You're going to get sicker if you don't take your meals, and with all the healing and magic, your body can't exactly afford any further weakness."

 

Harry winces, feeling as if he sounds like his mother or whatever. Malfoy's taken to staring at the ceiling, as he conveniently finds far more interesting than anything, ignoring the Healer and all the nurses' presence, including the nurses that are assigned to feed him meals. Harry's not expecting a response, but to his surprise, he gets one.

 

"What do you care?" Malfoy mutters, flat and dead, like all the life has been sucked out of him by a dementor. He then smiles wryly, but it's more a grimace. "Oh. Is it because you're going to have to owl my mother to tell her her pathetic son is dead? Boo hoo, how very sad for you, Saint Potter."

 

It's a half-hearted, morbid taunt at best, and Harry can tell he's really not into it. If anything, his animosity has partially turned inward.

 

"Tell you what, Malfoy, I reckon it'd be far sadder for your mother to receive that owl than for me to send it." Harsh as it sounds, it might shock him out of whatever state of mind he's in to a certain extent. If he doesn't care for himself anymore, then at least his care for his mother will force him to. "Perhaps you ought to think about her."

 

Malfoy's reddened eyes flick over at him in a sort of cold glare, mouth twisting into a vague sneer, yet so drained Harry hardly feels the brunt of it.

 

Despite the reaction, after Harry comes back from getting himself something to eat from the hospital cafeteria, he finds Malfoy eating cooperatively, elevated on the bed by a spell and spoon fed by a nurse, even if he looks murderous and humiliated. It would have been hilarious to see under any other circumstances, but Harry barely even considers teasing him due to the overall context.

 

…

 

"Why didn't you tell them?" Harry asks. If they're going to be here together, he might as well make conversation. It's the only source of entertainment right now besides the TV, but he's frankly gotten a little sick of it. "That it was me at the Manor?"

 

It's a question that's nagged Harry often enough. Why not, even if it could have won him his freedom and his family their high position and status back?

 

The most obvious answer Harry can think of is that it's a sort of exchange of favors _, I save your life, you save mine,_ but that circles back to the fact that he wouldn't have needed Harry to save him if he had turned him over to Voldemort and bought his emancipation, the permanent and far safer way to achieve it than to run away with Harry, Ron and Hermione, constantly on the chase and in deep discomfort due to his injuries and no proper way to heal them.

 

Malfoy shrugs carelessly, and leaves it there.

 

"Come on," Harry presses. "I mean, if I'm gonna be here, you might as well—"

 

"I didn't ask you to be here."

 

"But I'm _here_ ," Harry says, feeling miffed that Malfoy's stil being a stubborn and rude git. He knows he's hurting and Harry isn't who he wants here, but at least he's bloody well _here_ , isn't he? "That's more than you can say of any of your friends, Malfoy. So just—shut up up and—talk to me, or whatever." That came out wrong.

 

Malfoy raises an eyebrow.

 

"You know what I mean." Harry sighs. "You could have been free. Your family could have been powerful again. You still didn't tell them it was me."

 

"Let me guess, you assume I did it out of the goodness of my heart," Malfoy drawls mockingly.

 

"I don't assume anything," Harry responds. "But it's the part that confuses me."

 

Malfoy snorts derisively, looking at Harry, quicksilver still as frigid as ever. "You really think he would have done that, Potter? Let me go, when he could so clearly see that I wasn't fully devoted to his cause?"

 

Harry had seen Malfoy's reluctance in the Astronomy Tower. Voldemort must have somehow figured it out, seen somehow that Malfoy isn't entirely on his side, even if he wasn't of the opposite side either. Voldemort might have felt his loyalties threatened by this uncertainty anyway.

 

"At least by placing my faiths in you, I knew I could have a pseudo-certainty of his death coming about. As long as you lived, there was a possibility that we'd make it out alive, or at least my family—"

 

Malfoy stops there, the glimpse of grief that Harry only got to hear flashing across his face, perhaps of the thought that Voldemort may have died, but so had most of his family anyway. He swallows, his eyes growing dull as he regains composure.

 

"Either way, the outcome was the same, whether or not I identified you. Either I died, or they did worse of whatever they were going to do to me, but they were going to hurt me anyway, so what did it matter? At least I wouldn't have had the blood of three other people on my hands."

 

Harry nods. That does make sense, and sounds about right for someone like Malfoy.

 

And yet, he had the strange intuition that Malfoy isn't telling him everything, like he's holding back somehow.

 

…

 

The next morning, Harry comes upon a very empty-gazed Malfoy, immobile and unresponsive when Harry tries to get his attention. His first thought is, it's happened again somehow, and then his heart's hammering in his chest, his gut clenching, shaking Malfoy's shoulders in a borderline desperate manner, calling his name. He then lets go, runs off and catches a nurse closeby, the one who helps Malfoy with his basic needs.

 

"Excuse me, the boy, the one with the white blonde hair and grey eyes—" Harry doesn't use his name, but it'd be odd if they haven't already figured it out from his distinctive features and his striking similarity to the Malfoys. "He's… what's wrong with him? Why isn't he moving or saying anything or—"

 

"Don't worry, Mr. Potter. It's not what you're thinking," she says gently. "It's very common for post-Alucinatio survivors, that being combined with severe trauma, to retreat into their minds as a coping mechanism. Hard to tell what they're reliving, whether it's their dark times or, in your friend's case, their dreams from the potion." Harry hopes it's the dreams, if it really has to be this way, and not the nightmares he's suffered there. "From my experience, I've seen that talking to them, about anything, essentially hearing a familiar, kind voice, helps coax them out."

 

Harry's chest loosens, feeling light and like falling over. It's still not a good thing, especially if he's reliving the nightmares of his reality there, but it's better than what he thought.

 

…

 

Harry talks to Malfoy about something easy at first, something casual and impersonal but something they both loved once. He talks about Quidditch, any related events occurring, the recent matches Malfoy's missed out on and who's won and Harry even tells him who his favorite player is.

 

"Strange, isn't it? To think all these things were still ongoing," Harry muses with a grave grimace, then, but his voice is haunted and low. "Such blithe things, all while there were hundreds of people fighting for their lives in a school."

 

Malfoy comes back nearly an hour and a half later. Harry's throat hurts, his mouth dry, and he's more than a little out of breath, but he supposes it's worth hearing Malfoy mumble, "You babble too much, Potter."

 

Harry doesn't know if he's heard anything, but he assumes it's easy enough to tell Harry's been talking for a long time, and Malfoy's most probably just being Malfoy again.

 

…

 

If Draco doesn't look beneath the curtains of his denial and dissociation, he can pretend that his father and Severus are still out there, alive and unaware that Draco's here in St. Mungos. It's all hearsay right now, isn't it? Draco hasn't seen anything, hasn't seen them die or seen their bodies or seen their absence in all the places he knew, at the Manor (it hasn't been home since Evil waltzed in and made it his own), in the Potions class of Hogwarts, in Severus' home. If he doesn't think too hard, he can pretend, and it doesn't hurt, because he's not even sure if it's true, if it really happened.

 

He's had a whole different world, a whole other life, between the last he saw them, but they were there, weren't they? They were alive, and then Draco went away and woke up and they weren't. That doesn't seem right.

 

The life he's lived in his mind feels so much more real now, the life he's lived with beautiful Harry, dancing and laughing and loving. The life here is the life he feels he's dreaming about, a nightmare. Everything they did to him… they were just nightmares that he's going to wake up from back in their bed, opening his eyes to Harry's sleeping face in front of him.

 

Yet the reality of them showed in the panic and memories that flooded his veins whenever the Healer came to him with her wand for his daily healing and check-ups. He'd screamed at her then, hadn't said a word to her before, not even to answer her routine questions, but he'd screamed at her then to get it away from him because now wands meant something entirely different from what they meant before his months in the cellar.

 

Now they meant lacerations, and carved words in his skin, and they meant scorching agony so horrible and deep and to the bone that it's left a constant ache in his spine and cramping, seized muscles that would hurt if he could have moved, and it meant screaming and screaming and screaming until his throat was raw and his chest hurt and his body hurt so much he couldn't breathe right for hours after, for days and weeks after. 

 

Draco couldn't stand anyone touching him anymore, anyone except those whose touch he knew, his mother's and his father's (even if it'd been scarce throughout his childhood and adolescence) and Severus'.

 

Harry's. Potter now. He's just Potter here.

 

Anyone else could be Rowle again, or Greyback. Anyone else could squeeze bruises into his flesh and drag their nails down his skin until he bled and hit him over and over. Hurt him. Rip him apart. Break him and his bones.

 

Draco's so tired and empty he can hardly get himself to talk. But he talks to Harry—to Potter, not Harry—because he was Harry there and he has never known how to not notice him. Ever. He knows he's unkind most of the time these days, has never been known to be anything but anyway but he should be far more civil out of his gratitude, shouldn't he? Potter could have left him there, had probably been more inclined to do just that until his mother forced him into her debt by saving his life, but he didn't. He came to get him out, even if it was not for Draco's sake.

 

But that's precisely the issue here, isn't it?

 

He came back from a world where he meant everything to him to a world he meant nothing.

 

Draco's been in love with the bastard seven years here, the many years of hero-worship before First Year not included.

 

He's hated him just as much for it, for making him feel this way when Draco knew it could never happen, when all Draco wanted to do was make his father proud and instead, he fell in love with a green-eyed boy in a robe shop, hardly understanding until years later, when he realized that the first thing he saw when he saw Harry—Potter—was how green his eyes were and how mussed up his hair was (and how he didn't hate it as much as he pretended to).

 

And he sat as close by as he could sometimes and eavesdropped into his conversations not only because he wanted something incriminating against him (an excuse to butt it into his conversations), but because he just wanted to know something, anything.

 

And he remembered every bloody thing about him when he could hardly remember what Pansy's favorite food was or what Goyle wanted to be when he grew up or what Blaise' favorite spell was, but he knew Potter loved treacle tarts and he knew Potter wanted to be an Auror and he knew Potter liked Expelliarmus because it was effective and didn't hurt anyone.

 

And when he heard Potter laugh, he got particularly irritated at him for laughing (tried to think that it was ugliest sound he'd ever heard, how fucking annoying, but he hadn't been able to explain the ache in his chest when he did) and at the person who made him laugh like that, and one day he discovered that it was because he wanted to know what it was like to be that person, wanted to _be_ that person.

 

And no matter hard he tried not to wonder, he wondered what his lips feel like, had spent years outlining its shape and examining its texture. He knows now, has lived an entire life knowing what it's like now, but Draco doesn't _really_ know. The Dreams must have only expanded on what he's imagined it to be all this time, but he can't imagine it any different anymore.

 

His skin. Merlin his skin. Draco's always wondered, often with his hands on his own.

 

In Fourth Year, he could hardly understand what Potter found so appealing about Cho Chang. He took Parvati Patil to the Yule Ball and Draco didn't think they looked good dancing together at all.

 

His father's made his views on people like him quite clear more than enough times. He's already so disappointed and ashamed of Draco by now, though, that Draco wonders if it even matters anymore, but it mattered then. The thought of what his father might think if he knew.

 

Draco had thought if he acted like he hated Ha—Potter, and he did hate him (for rejecting him on the train and for being one more reason why Draco could never be what his father wanted him to be and for being better, so much better), it might be that it'd be all that he's left with some day, that whatever idiotic feelings he's caught would dissipate if he forced himself to hard enough. The more he taunted and tormented the boy, the less his father would suspect that his own son's a shirt-lifter who's in love with The Boy Who Lived, and the better he felt about himself.

 

The idiotic feelings never went away, it seemed. They were pushed back in sixth year, with danger and threat and terror looming over his life and that of his family's, and his rage over his father having gone to Azkaban because of Potter.

 

But it never went away, as revealed in the Dreams. And now they never will. He already knows it's an exercise in futility, to try and let go, and it's always been. He's already had the best loving life he could have with the love of his life, and the thought of anyone else is impossible now.

 

But so is the thought of Harry Potter loving him back.

 

And Potter will leave, Draco's already foreseen it, and people don't stay long for people who have done nothing but made them miserable and for former Death-Eaters. It's nothing more than pity, a debt to repay to his mother, and if he lets himself believe anything more, then it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt with the pain of a lifetime's worth of love lost and absent. And he can't. He can't. Not after everything, after losing everything, after all the sores and wounds already torn open.

 

So Draco's going to make him leave first. When Potter will leave, and he will leave, he will not leave Draco with no false hopes of there being anything more, the way he's come to expect, to want more than anything after the Dreams. He's had a taste of it, more than a taste, he's had it for a forever that didn't exist, but nothing has changed here, and nothing will, and hoping that those Dreams can become reality is setting himself up for more sorrow that he has no room in him to bear.

 

This is the last they'll see of each other, and Draco will go on and spend the rest of his life trying to forget that beautiful life he's already lived, but at least he won't have to see Harry's face every day and remember everything that he'll never have, never in reality and truth, everything that he feels is his but isn't and will never be.

 

 

...

 

On another day, when Draco retreats back into himself, Harry talks to him about Teddy.

 

"He's your nephew, you know. Teddy. He's only five months old and he's already the smartest and the sweetest babe you'll know." Harry smiles at the thought of the cooing and happy baby under Andromeda's care. His smile wavers when he thinks of the baby being unaware of the tragedy of his life, even if he knows everyone who loves him will try their best not to let it define him. "I went to visit him today. He's very active and friendly, _always_ babbling, and he's picked up a word. Ree. Sounds like yee. But I think it's my name. Sounds like it, at least. If you'd met him, stone-hearted git as you are, I'm willing to bet even you'd love him."

 

**...**

 

 

The Ministry shows up sometime later on an evening for questioning, perhaps informed by a worker in the hospital. 

 

Draco doesn't respond to anything they ask, and it is unclear if he is unaware or ignoring them. Harry gives them the gist of it. He cooperates partially to make them go away as soon as possible.

 

The trial is still to be held for being an accomplice as well as attempting the murder of Albus Dumbledore and for being part of a highly malevolent and illegal supremacist group.

 

Goyle visits four days later.

 

Malfoy doesn't talk to Goyle, who seems to find it difficult to handle or cope or understand, but Harry can see he's trying.

 

"Dunno what they did to you to get you like this, mate," Goyle says by the end of it. He sounds a little frustrated and distressed, somewhat understandable, because Harry knows what Malfoy looks like when he's gone lost in his own head, but right now, he knows Goyle's there, made rather clear by the visible waver of his stony face upon hearing of Crabbe's death, and he's deliberately refusing to interact with him. Harry's tried to intervene and insisted he respond several times, but he doesn't bother. "But hope you get well soon."

 

Malfoy doesn't talk to Theodore Nott the next day either, but Nott's a lot less frustrated and distressed, and a lot more open to allowing Malfoy his space and some time.

 

Harry can't decide whether he should be mad or cut him some slack. On the one hand, he's terribly confused and irritated that when Malfoy's friends do show up and they're trying to be there for him, he hardly cares enough to spare them a word. On the other hand, Harry can't tell if it's just a part of some defense mechanism, or if it's because he's been so far from people that he doesn't know how to be with them anymore, doesn't know how to receive kindness and compassion.

 

…

 

Between Harry's visits to Teddy and Andromeda, the Weasley Burrows and staying with Malfoy, his visit to Narcissa Malfoy has been delayed by quite much, nearly two weeks now.

 

She greets him with the warmest and the tightest embrace at the door nonetheless, startling and unexpected at first, but eventually he relaxes into it. Even so, it's strange gesture to Harry from a woman he's always seen as so cold and distant, even after the way she'd melted and warmed up to him after her trial.

 

Narcissa steps back after a moment, letting go of him, and holds his cheeks in a maternal manner, a small watery grin on her face. The gratitude shone out of her light eyes like sunlight beams.

 

"Come on in, Harry," she says, and then turns around, beckoning him inside. As he walks in, she inconspicuously tries to dab at the corner of her eyes with her fingers. The magical tracking device on her ankle briefly registers in his mind.

 

Inside the dining room of the Malfoy Manor, she sits him down, calls over a House-elf named Mimi, and tells her to make them some tea.

 

Harry's assailed with the memories of the numerous flashes of visions through Voldemort's eyes; the black furniture, old like it's been used for generations, the large chairs, the long length of a table upon which the snake that was used to kill Severus Snape, Nagini, often slithered over, searching for supper in every inhabitant that sat around her, one command away. He'd often seen the Malfoy family sit here, hunched and tense, and wonders how Narcissa manages to live here at all with those memories in mind.

 

"Draco's awake," Harry starts with, getting straight to the most important point. The relief on Narcissa's face is palpable. "He was asking for you." He doesn't mention that he also asked for Severus and his father, but he supposes he doesn't have to. Narcissa looks down, somewhat guilty, as if she can somehow help being placed on House Arrest.

 

He then proceeds to tell her everything, from the start when he went to the Ministry, going to visit the Death-Eaters in Azkaban to get the location out of them, going with Ron and Hermione to save her son, his having a month left due to the potion and the cure—

 

"Who was it?" Narcissa questions, somewhat absently, the residual horror and fear, still, about having come so close to losing Draco creating a deep furrow between her eyebrows. "That—that woke him?"

 

"I don't know who it was," Harry answers. "I wasn't there when he woke up, so it—really could have been anyone."

 

Narcissa nods, but she's looking at him a certain way, thoughtful and unfathomable. Harry doesn't know what she's thinking. More than anything, she seems at a loss for words, still.

 

"I have his wand and his things for however long he needs to stay there," Narcissa says. She calls another house-elf and tells him to fetch a suitcase. The house-elf returns two minutes later with it. "Give it to him, please."

 

Harry takes the suitcase from her, placing it by his feet. 

 

Silence then reigns, for a long while. Narcissa seems lost in her own thoughts, and Harry, giving up on searching for something else to say, waits patiently for her to speak, sipping at his tea and letting it warm his hands.

 

"Four months, I spent," she says softly. "Wondering what they're doing to him right this minute, as I was thinking of him. I kept wondering if there is a way, some way to discover where he is and get him out and keep us away from it all—the Dark Lord and his cause—but I could never. Every scenario I thought of ended up with us, with Draco, dead. Yet, I feel...failed, as a mother—"

 

"It wasn't your fault."

 

Narcissa smiles ruefully. "I knew what was happening to him and I couldn't do anything to stop it. Even after the Dark Lord died, I couldn't, because they had him, and they were going to kill him if we said anything to the Aurors, to anyone that could have done anything, if we gave the Ministry their names in exchange for Draco's life. I wanted to. I wanted them all gone. I wanted them all _dead._ But I couldn't—couldn't do _anything_."

 

"You couldn't have done anything." Harry tries to imagine what it's like in her shoes, her impossible and wretched position, and it's sickening to think of. "You would have done it if you could. I know you would."

 

Narcissa swallows, tears filling her eyes. She smiles slightly at him and blinks, trying to regain composure. Harry notices just how much thinner and more frail she looks, dark bags under her eyes.

 

"They made me let go of him. Here, in my own home. I had to give him over to them with my own hands, knowing what they've done, what they'll do again." Her voice is a whisper, just as frail as her.

 

"I'm sorry," Harry says softly, meaning it with all his heart.

 

She sniffs. "I owe you everything, Harry." She reached over and took his hand, gripping it tightly. "You spared me all my fears and worries that I will never find him, and if I do, that he won't be… you brought him back alive, and then you saved him again. He's alive and free because of _you_. I cannot ever repay you this debt, but in whatever way that I can, I will try."

 

…

 

"I trust that you both are more civil to one another now?" Narcissa says with a smile, trying to lighten the sombre atmosphere. "I can't imagine it not being so, given the nature of what you're bonded by now."

 

Harry huffs, exasperated but also amused at her smile and her usage of 'bonded'. He's not sure Draco and him could ever bond over anything. If he's learned one thing, it's this. "Only one of us is trying, Mrs. Malfoy—"

 

"Narcissa."

 

"Sorry. Narcissa," Harry corrects himself. "And it isn't your son."

 

"Oh," she says. Her forehead furrows, genuinely perplexed. "Why so? I'd have thought he'd be far more grateful to his savior."

 

"I'd have thought too," Harry snorts, only half-joking. While he didn't do it for any sort of credit or gratitude, some appreciation for him and his friends actually putting their lives at stake to run into a room full of Death-Eaters for Draco would have been lovely.

 

On his departure, Narcissa hugs him once again and lets him go with a kiss to his cheek.

 


	7. You Are My Favorite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for usage of homophobic terms (due to Draco's upbringing in an extremely bigoted environment), description of injuries

At some point in his sleep, Draco had been turned over on his side. Coincidentally the pain in his back and muscles is noticeably eased, even if by a little. He's torn between getting mad at having a wand put to him in his vulnerable slumbering state and being glad at the thought that given enough time, his backache and muscle pain could be eased down to no more than a dull one much sooner than he expects.

 

The first thing he sees upon opening his eyes is Har _—_ Potter, fallen asleep in the chair beside him. It's still very early in the morning, and it's pathetically one of the many things he knows about Potter that he's not a morning person. It does something strange to his chest to think that Potter would come all the way here anyway, for him.

 

He can't think, or feel, too much about that.

 

Potter looks exhausted, like he isn't sleeping right or well. Draco imagines it's something to do with the war. The Battle of Hogwarts is a very abstract and distant concept to him, since he's been very far and isolated from it all, not even _here_ when it'd happened, really, but it had to be very real to Potter, of course, who was stark in the front of it. He thinks of his mother, her crucial decision in it, and feels so much more admiration and respect for her than he already does, which had already been rather excessive. He misses her.

 

Draco returns his gaze up to the snoring boy in the chair next to him. Even exhausted, the bastard looks beautiful, especially under the yellow sunlight beaming in through the translucent pale curtains of the window, light reflecting off his mussed up raven hair like a halo. His rounded glasses are skewed, a little further down the tip of his nose, and he looks warm and golden, his breaths cadenced lilts of soft squeaks when he inhales and soft snores when he exhales.

 

It's the same face Draco's waken up to for decades, only growing older and older.

 

It's only a moment later that he becomes very much aware of his staring, the damned soppy and soft one that always made Harry ask him jokingly, _what are you looking at_ , and then kiss him until he couldn't breathe. _It's rude to stare, don't you know?_

 

Potter asked him why he didn't tell them it was him at the Manor. Draco gave him all the reasons but one.

 

 _I love you_ , Draco thinks to the sleeping boy, to the love of his life that will never love him back, and feels stupid. But his stupid fucking heart is throbbing again.

 

When Potter shifts and twitches, Draco looks away, flicking his gaze sideways down to his pillow.

 

…

 

 _Draco presses his lips together. "How do you forget your hat_  and _your gloves in this kind of winter?" Idiot. His, but still._

 

_"I was in a hurry, okay!" Harry explains defensively, foggy puffs of air leaving his mouth as he speaks. His face and ears are flushed red from the cold, his body shivering as he tucks his hands into his armpits. "I was eleven minutes late for Potions. Professor Snape would have had my head if I arrived any later."_

 

_"Have I told you that you're a bloody idiot before, Harry?"_

 

_Harry rolls his eyes. "I don't know. Maybe, say, a billion times a day?"_

 

_"So, not enough times then."_

 

_Harry removes his frozen hands out of his armpits long enough to shove at his shoulder._

 

 _Draco smirks amusedly, staggering back slightly. He_ _then sighs, sounding put-upon. "Well, give me your hands."_

 

_Harry snorts. "You can't hold my hands to warm them all the way until we can go back to our common rooms. I'll just have to keep casting a warming charm—"_

 

_"You babble too much." Draco grabs his hands and shoves them into the pockets of his own coat, gripping them tightly with his own gloved hands. "Better?"_

 

_Harry grins softly. "Definitely."_

 

_Harry takes the chance and grabs Draco's waist from the inside of his pockets, pulling him close against his own body. Draco smirks and lets go of one hand to haul him in by his scarf, fitting his mouth against Harry's and dragging him into a deep kiss._

 

_The snowflakes fall on top of them gently._

 

...

 

Ron and Hermione come back. Harry's so surprised and thrilled to see them again that he nearly drops his caffeinated drink and treats. Hermione runs over and hugs him, grinning widely. Ron follows behind her, although at a slower pace, but still with a happiness matching hers.

 

"They remember me," she whispers. "We got them to remember me."

 

Harry hugs her back tightly.

 

Ron and Hermione tell Harry everything. It was difficult at first to convince Hermione's parents to trust them. They refused to believe they could ever just _forget_ that they had a child, a daughter, even if she looked so much like Mrs. Granger. They'd been feeling agitated and confused, having a strange, hollow and nagging sense that they're missing something, that something happened that they couldn't remember, that there are memories related to a certain smell or sight that they couldn't reach or find, but it was difficult to believe it could all be explained by the idea that they had a whole daughter they raised, but forgotten that she existed.

 

Hermione showed them her magic, showed them that it was possible for it to happen, and she explained everything, that she had done it to protect them because it was becoming dangerous for someone like her, Muggle and friend of Harry Potter, that there was someone after her and her friends. They were terrified and wary at first, and then angry, and they forced both of them out of their home, Hermione's home.

 

They were left at a loss then, so she and Ron settled down in a hotel for the time being. They still went over every now and then, but her parents had always driven them out, believing they were insane and unnatural. Harry can't imagine her heartache at being told to leave multiple times by her own parents, and urged by his own heartache, pulled her in for another side-hug.

 

They called her after a week and a half, having gotten her number from Hermione's aunt, Matilda, whose muggleborn daughter had already graduated from Hogwarts, and had explained the entire situation to Hermione's parents. They took it better from her.

 

Hermione had explained the entire situation to Professor McGonagall in order to use the Pensieve in the Headmistress' office before she left for Australia. The Professor accepted immediately, readily willing to help. When the time came, she fire-called the Professor and they set off for Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione with her parents by air travel, Ron having discovered his utter terror of flying on aeroplanes very recently, bless him, muddled through for her sake.

 

Now her parents are staying over at a flat nearby, where they'll spend the rest of the summer with her.

 

"They loved me," Ron breathes out. "I can't believe…"

 

"Hard not to," Hermione laughs fondly, and then pecks him on the lips.

 

Ron looks deeply pleased at her comment and the kiss. "Right? I was a total gentleman, so of course they would love me."

 

"Don't get so bloated, Ronald," Hermione teases. "You'll have to be if you want to keep all your teeth. My parents are dentists, so they'll know a lot about how to make that hurt."

 

Ron's forehead furrows. "You are a scary woman, Hermione Granger."

 

Harry laughs, shaking his head. "That's what you signed up for when you decided to fall in love with her, you know."

 

Ron sighs, longsufferingly. "I did, didn't I?" Hermione grins, punching him lightly.

 

...

 

Hermione shoos Harry away, telling Ron to drag him back to the Burrows and make sure he rests well, because he honestly looks terrible. She's not entirely excited about spending any more time than necessary with Malfoy, given their history and his views towards her kind, but she knows Harry deserves a day or two to himself,  so she's willing to do it. Besides, in the meantime, she can read her eighth year books.

 

She gets to St. Mungos very early in the morning, while it's quiet and calm, birds chirping outside and the sun only beginning to rise.

 

Hermione vaguely feels like she's waiting for a lion to wake up as she stares at Malfoy for a brief moment, sleeping on the side of his stomach, but she tries to ignore the feeling and opens the fifth chapter of her Transfiguration book.

 

The Healer, Areen, comes by Malfoy some time later. When she sees Hermione watching, she puts a finger to her lips sternly, holding a wand in her other hand. Hermione puts two and two together immediately, her mind drawing on the events of the Manor, when Rowle spoke of Crucio'ing Malfoy. Who knows what else they did with it? It must have resulted in him fearing wands. 

 

Her rhetorical question as to what else they might have done to Malfoy is unbiddenly answered when Areen carefully lifts up his shirt.

 

An involuntary gasp escapes Hermione as horror floods through her veins, before she promptly stops breathing, now not only from her horror but also due to the fact that her low gasp was enough to make Malfoy's face twitch, his body shifting imperceptibly. The Healer is still, calmly waiting for him to still too. Hermione shoots her a contrite look, but she shakes her head infinitesimally to tell her it's all right.

 

Hermione returns her gaze to the scarred body, some wounds still healing, the muscles there hard and cramped in a way that looks painful and deeply uncomfortable. There are pink, carved words that she doesn't dare look closer to read, lacerations upon lacerations, gashes and slashes criss crossing over each other.

 

Malfoy's eyes open then, blinking slowly, unaware for a moment what's going on. He sees Hermione, his face surprisingly straight and free of a sneer upon her sight. His forehead only furrows slightly in bewilderment.

 

That is, until he must have realized just what's going on. He jolts violently and tries to shove away with an angry cry from Areen, even if it seems to hurt him.

 

"I told you to get that away from me!" Malfoy bellows, his teeth grinded. His voice is teetering on a quiver. "Get it away, right now!"

 

Areen complies with a disappointed sigh, putting her wand back under her sleeve. "Your recovery will take that much longer if you don't let me use spells, Mr. Malfoy. Potions and salves aren't quite as effective."

 

"I don't care. Make do," Malfoy grits out. His eyes then catch Hermione again. He fumbles shakily with his arms to push down his shirt, his breaths quick with anger and residual panic. "What are you looking at?"

 

Malfoy doesn't look like he'd be happy about her responding in any way other than pretending she didn't see anything. So she does.

 

"Nothing," she answers calmly.

 

"That's what I thought," Malfoy snarls coldly. He's ashamed of his body, Hermione sees. He doesn't ever want anyone to see any of it. He then looks away, prepared to pretend she isn't there for the rest of the day.

 

There are magical creams to make scars fade, but scars like that are never going to fade completely. Ever. She looks down into her book, feeling nauseated at what she's just seen, not by Malfoy's body, but by the idea that anybody can be capable of so much cruelty that they would make someone's body look like that and not feel anything.

  

…

 

"So who was it?"

 

Draco raises a questioning eyebrow.

 

"The one that woke you?" Harry clarifies.

 

"Very elaborate, Potter."

 

Harry realizes then that Malfoy probably has no idea what the cure of the potion is.

 

"Um… see, the cure for the Alucinatio potion is the tears of anyone you wanted affection from," Harry explains. He shrugs. "But there wasn't anyone there. Not that we know of. It's just a little curious, I suppose _—"_

 

Harry trails off when he catches Malfoy's eye, an unfathomable expression on his face.

 

"What?"

 

Malfoy blinks, as if returning to himself. He looks away, seemingly struggling to find his voice. "Nothing."

 

"You know who it is?" Harry asks. It's about the only thing that could explain _that_ odd reaction.

 

"It's none of your concern, Potter," Malfoy drawls. "So leave it be."

 

"Was it a girl?" Harry grins playfully. He then frowns in mock-thought, brows furrowing, cocking his head. "Now who would _Draco Malfoy_ be pining over? I'd like to give her my condolences, you see, so do share."

 

Draco's eyes flick over at him in a brief, cold glance.

 

And then, as if a thought occurs to him, he narrows his eyes into a scheming sort of squint, his head tilted infinitesimally. He smirks, to Harry's confusion, and then looks to Harry fully.

 

"Ever heard of a faggot, Potter?"

 

Harry startles at the abrupt and irrevelant question and, in particular, the very rude word. "Yes. Blokes who likes blokes. And that's a very unkind word you just used." Harry has Hermione for a best friend, who's very well-informed and educated in discrimination issues, and equally as passionate about them. She doesn't hesitate to call them out when they make such mistakes and explains it thoroughly as to why it's wrong until neither Ron or Harry can brush it away without feeling like arseholes. Harry knows the reason why she's so ardent about equality is, not only because it's sensible when one thinks about it, but because she's faced inequality herself. "Why are you asking _—"_

 

Malfoy's expression is intent and expectant, eyebrows raised, as if he's waiting for Harry to catch on to something.

 

"Oh," Harry breathes dumbly, when revelation strikes. "Oh, you… _you_ like… blokes..."

 

Malfoy smirks again, to Harry's further confusion, as if he's just achieved something great, or knows he's succeeded in something.

 

"Okay."

 

Malfoy's smug smirk evaporates there. "Okay?"

 

"Okay. So it was a boy then?" Some past lover that Harry certainly doesn't know of, perhaps, or so he assumes.

 

Malfoy stares at him, baffled and dumbfounded.

 

His silver eyes narrow. "Aren't you supposed to be running off?"

 

Harry frowns. "Running off?" He imagines it's a consistent mindset with growing up in a bigoted pureblood family that's probably had the ultimate expectation of continuing their bloodlines.  "Malfoy, there's nothing wrong with being gay. It's not a very well-known thing here, so most people might find it...different, and odd, but it's not odd, and it's certainly not a bad thing. It's just a thing. I mean, it's like, it's really just like boys and girls, but… boys and boys, or girls and girls." He really isn't doing a good job expressing his thoughts, is he? Harry sighs. Malfoy looks lost, like he hadn't expected this sort of reaction. Like he hadn't even known that it was possible for someone to react like this. "'Mione could explain it better."

 

…

 

_Ginger roots… Hippogriff feather… a drop of manticore blood—_

 

_Harry's half-sat up along with Draco against the headboard of the bed, snoring into his chest under the blankets, which is very distracting for Draco, honestly. He really needs to read over this chapter of Fourth Year Potions, so he can teach it to his students tomorrow morning. It's a very delicate and meticulous procedure, and he can't make any mistake in it, hence needing to read each and every line carefully, but he can hardly focus over Harry's fire-breathing._

 

_But gods, he looks so very serene and beautiful, and he's so bloody warm and soft in his arms, fuck, Draco hardly has the heart to make him quiet._

 

_Draco gently massages Harry's head, running fingers through his black hair. He sighs longsufferingly, feeling exasperated and yet so painfully fond that his heart could burst. He puts the book aside on the night table and kisses the top of his head, pulling him closer by the waist into his side. Noisy git._

 

_…_

 

By the next two weeks, Malfoy's grown better. He can move some, even if he's still confined to his bed, and it's not enough to change positions. He's gained some weight since the first day he was brought here, a month and one week ago, but Areen is saying his progress is still terribly slow, because he won't let her use the wand. If she could use spells on a more regular and consistent basis, Malfoy could be freed from here by the next three weeks. If not, then at this rate, it could take months.

 

Harry tries to explain this to Malfoy, who's still hellbent and stubborn on not letting any wands get near him.

 

Goyle and Nott come by, but Malfoy hardly bothers to acknowledge they're there, so eventually Goyle's visits become shorter and lesser, and Nott's still trying his best to come by, but he's busy most of the time, working three jobs at the magical artefacts shops, book shops and a small tavern.

 

As Malfoy's grown better, he's also grown a lot more snippier and nastier, his efforts redoubling to get rid of Harry. Harry still doesn't under the reason behind it, besides that he just doesn't like Harry. But isn't it better than nothing, than being alone? Harry bloody sits there for hours, until his arse is numb, and he's not sure if it's fair of him to expect some gratitude given where Malfoy's head is at and that Malfoy himself has made it clear he doesn't want him there, but he is starting to feel very irritated and fed up of it.

 

Eventually, the boiling water of his emotions rises to the brim and begins to overflow. He is exhausted all the bloody time, trying to balance his time with Malfoy and everyone he loves, he's annoyed and frustrated because Malfoy's _really_ starting to be a real pain in the arse, almost like they're back in school all over again, having taken to insulting his friends ( _fuck off, Potter, and take your bushy-haired minger and your Weasel twat with you as you do, please. I'm tired of seeing them hang around like your little lapdogs_ ) and drawing on old insecurities and fears ( _you look like shite, like you just got the Dementor's Kiss. Was it nice? Did you use tongue, Potter?), and_ Harry is stretched thin, physically and mentally and emotionally.

 

And then one day, like a thick rubber cord that's been stretching towards its breaking point for the longest time finally snapping apart, he finds his vision turning grey at the edges, his head ringing as he tries to grapple for control.

 

"Are you ever going to fucking change?" Harry yells, jolting to his feet so hard that the chair topples over with a loud thud. Malfoy flinches violently, but it barely registers to Harry in his haze of uninhibited fury. "My friends, who you so freely insult, risked their lives to get your pathetic arse out of that bloody cellar they were keeping you in! You'd think after everything that happened, you'd have learned some humility, but no, you are the same arrogant, selfish, self-absorbed bastard that you've always been, and now I can see that it's all you'll ever be."

 

Malfoy is silent all throughout. He is silent after. He doesn't budge his sunken eyes from the plain cracked ceiling. The only sounds in the room is Harry's harsh and angry breathing and, when the silence threatens his control even further, his hasty footsteps as he strides out of the room.

 

…

 

Malfoy's facing the wall, back to him, so Harry doesn't know if he's gone into his head or if he's sleeping or if he's ignoring Harry.

 

Harry has thought about it some, a lot, and he's starting to wonder if he'd been wrong to stay when Malfoy's made it perfectly clear that it's not what he wanted. Harry had excused it away with Malfoy hurting, Malfoy pushing everyone away because of it, Malfoy doesn't like him but he still needs someone, doesn't he?

 

Harry only had good intentions, but he's suddenly not sure what he's been thinking all this time. Malfoy hated him. There was nothing that he needed from Harry, nothing that Harry can do that would help him in any way, that would make him feel safe or less alone or—anything. Harry can't ever fill in for his family or his friends, and even though he wasn't trying to at all, had only wanted Malfoy to have _someone_ there, he realizes now having Harry here is close to having no one here to Malfoy. Even worse, perhaps.

 

Harry stands beside the chair, hand gripping the back of it as he shifts uncertainly on his feet.

 

"I don't know if you're hearing this, Malfoy. I'll tell your friends, Nott or Goyle, to fill you in regardless. If you'd wonder, that is. I don't suppose you will, but they'll tell you anyway." Harry breathes in, once, deeply, and exhales it out. "I thought I was helping. I only wanted… I only wanted you to have someone with you. I don't know. All I know is that you've been through enough shite to last you a lifetime, and if me being here is just… making it worse, then it's best for me to not be here at all."

 

Harry pauses, watching Malfoy's thin back for any movement, ears alert for any response that might come his way. There isn't any. He nods slowly, once, in understanding. It's alright, he supposes. It's alright. He only wishes he hadn't wasted both of their time like this.

 

"Goodbye, Malfoy."

 

…

 

_"I just wonder sometimes," Draco mumbles quietly. "If you like your other friends more."_

 

_They've been friends for eight months now. Summer's almost near, about a week away. While Harry had never done anything to make him doubt that he wants Draco as his friend just as much as Draco wants Harry, he can't help but wonder at times. Harry's got to have so much more in common with his Gryffindork friends than with Draco, and what if, what if that means he's eventually going to get bored of Draco and stop wanting to spend time with him and he'll leave him?_

 

_Draco tentatively expresses just as much, staring down at his hands with an insecure frown._

 

 _"Can I tell you a secret?" Harry asks. He looks around, somewhat dramatically if Draco says so himself, and Harry tells him_ he's _dramatic. Hah._

 

_"Okay," Draco says, squinting curiously._

 

_Harry sighs lowly. "I love all my friends. Really. I love them like family now, and it's only been a couple of months. Ron and Hermione and Fred and George. Neville and Dean and Seamus too." He leans close to Draco. "I love you too." Draco's heart skips, like he's just missed a step and is about to fall over, and he straightens, keen to hear the next words. "But I think I love you in a different way."_

 

_Draco doesn't know what it means, or how to feel about it. "Different?" he echoes, his face pinching in puzzlement and wariness. "How?"_

 

_"I don't know," Harry says softly. "But I like making you laugh more than I like making others laugh. That feels good too, but it's...it's different. And I like the color of your eyes. And your hair. And I like your voice. And I try to think of everyone else's eyes and hair and voice, but I don't think I really care about theirs. And I want to be with you. I mean, I want to be with them too, I like being with them a lot, but I always think about being with you."_

 

_Draco smiles, the small tug lifting at the corner of his lips. His heart is throbbing and fast, like it's too big and soft in his chest._

 

_"What does it mean then, Harry?" Draco asks, just wanting to hear more of it, more of Harry._

 

_Harry shrugs, pressing his lips in thought._

 

_"I think… I think it means you're my favorite," Harry says. He glances at him with a small smile. "And if you're my favorite, then I could never leave you, could I?"_

 

_The smile on Draco's lips grow wider into a flicker of a grin. "You're my favorite too."_


	8. I Did Come Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Description of injuries, panic attack

"I left," Harry tells Ron and Hermione. "I told you Malfoy was getting really, er… agitated, I suppose. Hostile. I just thought, you know… I'm making things worse, aren't I? So I should just get out of his way."

 

"You didn't make anything worse, Harry!" Ron says, outraged and defensive. "Malfoy's just an ungrateful prick, isn't he? He wouldn't bloody know kindness and compassion if it smacked him red in the arse and ran off, probably because the git has no concept of it!"

 

"It's alright, Ron," Harry pacifies. "Calm down. It's over now anyway."

 

"What a waste of time and effort," Ron grits out, fists clenching tightly. "He can stew alone in his misery for all we care! We should have left him the day we got him to St. Mungos."

 

Hermione's been quiet and thoughtful. Harry wonders what she's thinking.

 

"Ronald Weasley!" Molly shouts from downstairs.

 

"Oh, bloody Hell! I forgot it was my turn to do the dishes," Ron grumbles. "Honestly, 'Mione, soon as this year ends, we're getting our own place, you hear?"

 

Hermione narrows her eyes. "Do you honestly believe you'll be saved from doing the dishes when we get our own place?"

 

"No," Ron quavers under her glare. "But I _will_ be saved from doing the dishes of a family of eight, you know. And Charlie never bothers to throw out his leftovers." He shudders. "Nasty."

 

Harry throws him a sympathetic look. "I would help you if I wanted to."

 

Ron scowls. "Thanks, mate." Harry shoots him a shite-eating grin.

 

Ron rushes downstairs, footsteps padding rhythmically down the steps of the stairs.

 

Harry looks to Hermione, who's returned to her thoughts. "What are you thinking?"

 

Hermione hums. "Oh...just. Um. Malfoy."

 

"What about him?"

 

Hermione meets his eyes. She sighs, scooting forward slightly on the opposite bed, where Ron sleeps. "I'm not going to encourage you to go back if you don't want to, Harry. You've been quite strung up these last few weeks because of how unpleasant he's been." She pauses, lips twisting slightly in thought and contemplation, perhaps over whether she should mention what she's about to. "But... my two cents? He may be acting like an utter arsehole, but I think he needs you far more than he's letting on."

 

Harry raises an eyebrow inquiringly, curiously. "Why do you say that?"

 

"Haven't you noticed?" Hermione asks pointedly.

 

Harry hasn't, apparently, because he has no clue what she's talking about. She sees that on his face.

 

"He doesn't talk to anyone except you. He doesn't talk to the nurses, or Healer Areen, or me—"

 

"All he does is tell me to sod off," Harry says, confused. "So he just _particularly_ hates me, as always. Why—"

 

"Harry." Hermione shakes her head. "He doesn't even talk to his _friends_. His _childhood_ friends. It's just a little curious, don't you think?"

 

"Why would he need me of all people? Especially over his friends?" But Harry can't deny that it is very curious, being the exception to Malfoy's asocialness these days.

 

"That I don't know." Hermione shrugs. "If you want to figure that out, it's up to you."

 

Harry, always having found it difficult _not_ to uncover any mysteries of life, is quite interested in figuring that out, in all honesty. But first, he needs confirmation, and he knows just what to do.

 

...

 

"Malfoy," Harry says as soon as he strides into the hospital room, closing the door behind him.

 

Malfoy eyes him sideways. "What happened to you leaving?"

 

Harry briefly wonders if he was listening or if he got it from Nott on his visit yesterday.

 

"I changed my mind."

 

"Lovely," Malfoy drawls satirically.

 

Harry stays silent for a moment, just scrutinizing him and his body language. Malfoy's clearly tensed, even though his facial expression is rigid.

 

"I think you're full of shite, Malfoy," Harry says softly. "Nobody can go through so much and not need someone."

 

"Well, here's your miracle, then. Because I don't," Malfoy snarls. "I certainly don't need _you_ of all people, Potter. Get that through your thick head already."

 

"I was the one that found you first," Harry says. He exhales sharply, knowing it could either get the message across or piss Malfoy off even more.  "I was the one that carried you out of that cellar and I was the one that had to hear the entirety of what they did to you from your healer and I was the one you saw first, besides the nurses and Healer Areen. You calmed down only when you saw _me._ " Malfoy's jaw clenched in angry remorse and embarrassment, maybe at the idea that Harry clearly noticed. "I was the one that had to tell you what happened to your family."

 

"And?" Piss him off, then. "I'm not your bloody charity case, Potter. Go use your idiotic savior tendencies on someone that wants it."

 

Harry wants to bash his own head into a wall. _Fuck_ , the stubborn bastard is infuriatingly stubborn. "That's not," Harry grits out. "Bloody hell, Malfoy, don't you fucking understand? We are hardly friends, I know that, but now we are connected by something far more than an old childhood rivalry." He breathes in, breathes out, letting his frustration and vexation leave with the air. "So I am here. I am _staying_."

 

He thinks, if Hermione's right in any way, then leaving Malfoy completely unaware of Harry's intention to return wouldn't be very kind, which, Harry somewhat bitterly thinks, is just about what the prat deserves. But no. Harry's going to let him know, and then he's going to let Malfoy stew in his loneliness and misery until he realizes just how shite it is to be alone, and then he's going to come back and hopefully, the git will find it in him to be more civil to him onwards and accept his company until he can get well.

 

"But until you get that through your thick head, Malfoy," Harry continues. "I'll be out of your way. And when you need me, I'll come by."

 

Harry turns and walks out before Malfoy can say anything.

 

...

 

_"I have to get up," Draco murmurs against warm lips brushing against his own lips, warm body pinning down his own body._

 

_Harry's touching his face gently, lowering his own down to press his nose against his cheek. He isn't wearing his glasses. "But do you want to?" He's smiling against Draco._

 

 _"I always tell my students to be punctual, you know," Draco tries to insist, not very insistently and very, very breathlessly. It's hard when Harry's kissing open-mouthed kisses down his neck, Draco's head craning to expose more of his skin seemingly of its own accord. "Mh... if_ I'm _late, I lose all right to give them detention—for being any later than a second."_

 

_"Good." Kiss. "for." Kiss. "them."_

 

_"Not for me, because I do like-" Draco swallows to regain his voice, trying to grin against the tingles of pleasure all over his body, down his body, forcing his face to contort, Harry's hands running down his waist. Draco shifts on his back underneath him. "do like giving them detention. A lot." He grasps Harry's shoulders with an intention to push him off. He ends up pulling him closer with a gasp when Harry sucks on the skin of his collarbone. "Fuck, Harry… fuck… fuck you!"_

 

_Harry laughs into the hollow of his neck. "Yes please."_

 

…

 

Without Potter, Draco is left with himself, and unfortunately for him, he doesn't like himself very much.

 

Without Potter and his attempts at conversing with him, Draco is left with his own mind to converse with, and his mind these days is not the brightest or the kindest thing to pay attention to these days.

 

For the last two days, he's been in and out of the living world, and not due to sleeping, oh no. He hasn't been able to sleep well since Potter left, now that the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is an empty room and the darkness of it and the last thing he hears is silence and not Potter's murmurs or his chattering voice, depending on how energetic he feels.

 

Without Potter, he finds that his hospital room is too much like his cellar.

 

So now he spends a lot of time thinking about cold, rough hands tearing him apart every way they could, the snap of his own bones breaking and the sound of his own screams and the _pain_ , so much pain he could drown in it and not be able to breathe ever again, and wands that flick and send every nerve in his body scorching like fire, his joints screaming and his muscles screaming to the bone, himself screaming until he's lost his voice, thrashing and writing violently, blindly, in his body's useless attempts to make the pain stop and now his backbone isn't quite the same. Lacerations, words, horrible words carved into his skin with razor-sharp tips protruding from wands, over and over, until he throws up the little he got to eat on the floor.

 

...

 

_"How many times have I told you, Draco?" His father drawls coldly. "You are not to disturb me when I'm in the study room."_

 

_Draco swallows. He knows his father's not happy that he's come second to that bushy-haired mudblood again. Hermione Granger. Second year in a row. But he hopes he might win his father's favour soon, at least some of it for now._

 

_"I-I know, Father," Draco says, smiles nervously, but pacifyingly. "I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't important though. Mother had said you were looking for a parchment, the one about the Ministry's-"_

 

_"I don't need it anymore," Lucius grinds out. "I asked your mother two days ago. I've already received a copy this morning, Draco."_

 

_"Oh," Draco says, lamely. "Well, I found…" He trails off, glancing down at the parchment in his hand awkwardly._

 

_"Get out," Lucius says, flat and annoyed. Draco stands there for a moment, thinking he should perhaps apologize for disturbing his father, at least. His father's bellow cuts off his dilemma. "I said get out, now!"_

 

_"Yes, father," Draco says hastily. He turns and walks out, closing the door of the study room behind him. He blinks, his vision blurring, and blames it on being tired. He's spent a couple of hours searching for the parchment with some of the house-elves, so it's quite natural, he supposes. He's just very tired right now, that's all._

 

_…_

 

Draco stares up at the plain ceiling, thoughts and images playing across the whitewashed paint. He swallows hard. His father's frigid face keeps haunting his mind, the thought of never getting to see him or touch him or talk to him, explain things to him and make it right—

 

He imagines standing in front of his father, even if in reality, he'd hardly be able to stand the sight of Draco anymore. He imagines saying everything he keeps thinking he should have gotten to say, and his father listening calmly to every word he says, like from his dreams.

 

_I'm sorry for bringing disgrace and dishonour upon our family._

 

_I didn't know how to stop them. I wanted to. I wanted to so much. But I just couldn't._

 

_I didn't know what to do._

 

_I should have fought, I think._

 

_I should have fought more. But I was so scared. I'm sorry._

 

_I'm sorry you died not getting to feel proud of your only son._

 

_I'm sorry I could hardly make myself mean anything good to you while you lived. I tried so hard. I'm sorry I wasn't good enough._

 

_If you knew me more, I think you'd love me even less._

 

_I wish you didn't die feeling ashamed of me._

 

In his mind, his father smiles at him, patting his shoulder. In his mind, his father shakes his head imperceptibly, like he doesn't quite understand where it's all coming from, and says, " _You're my son, Draco. My only boy. There is hardly anything in the world that can make me ashamed of you_."

 

…

 

_Draco giggles, covering himself with the black cloak._

 

_"Draco," Severus sighs softly, having to lower slightly in an awkward position to accommodate the boy's pulling and wrapping. "It isn't for play, dear boy."_

 

_"I look sca-y, don' I, Sev? Sca-y like you." Draco smiles widely. He puts the cloak over his head, pulling them around the sides of his face and joining them at his neck. "Booooo."_

 

_Severus shakes his head, his lips upturned imperceptibly._

 

_"People t-ink you're sca-y," Draco tells him, upon seeing his barely noticeable smile, burying his small face into his side and clutching his shirt inside the cloak. "but I know you're not sca-y, Sev."_

 

_Severus puts an arm around his back, patting his small shoulder. "Only to you, Dragon."_

 

_..._

 

 

He can't stop thinking of Severus, Severus who gave him that dream of a life, so he wouldn't suffer, but now Draco's left with faux memories and images that never happened but feel as real as everything else that is real, a whole life of love and joy and beauty that Draco woke up and learned the impossibility of.

 

He can't stop thinking about the way Severus died. The Dark Lord knew nothing of his double spying (Potter told him, during those times he didn't think Draco was listening), knew nothing of his secret support for the Light, had been working alongside Professor Dumbledore all along, but nobody else aware of his bravery and heroism and all believing he was a traitor and a murderer until his last moment. But to the Dark Lord, in the Dark Lord's mind, he was his most loyal and competent follower, the one that had seen through each and every task he had set out for him, the one that had served him for years.

 

And he killed him. He just killed him in cold blood, just set his giant pet snake on his throat and _killed_ him. He killed him not for betrayal, not for his disloyalty, but killed him despite his faith in him remorselessly, all for a wand.

 

Severus who helped him in Potions, tutored him over the summer so he could excel and perhaps make his father proud for one thing, who listened to his childish rants and vents calmly without losing the patience his father lacked at times, who helped take care of him when he was a child and let him hide in his cloak when he was afraid, or because he wanted to pretend to be a scary monster, who went to fake Professor Moody and disparaged him for Draco's sake after the ferret incident left him a few bruises.

 

Severus who came to see Draco every chance he got and held him in his filthy and dark cellar until Draco fell asleep, until he ran out of time.

 

Severus who is dead, and left a part of Draco's heart and soul dead too, and whose absence in Draco's already too big and empty world (where very few have stitched their places into) is a hollow space of something missing.

 

...

 

_"Marry me."_

 

_It's a quiet moment, the room filled with yellow morning light. Draco is sitting on the armchair by the window, a book in his hand and fingers wrapped around the handle of a mug in the other. His legs are up to his chest, heels on the edge of the cushion._

 

_Harry's woken up, Draco doesn't know how long for. He's lain on the bed, bare chesy under covers, all warm and swathed in light, soft green eyes meeting with his own silver ones. He wonders if he's heard it right._

 

_Draco blinks. He puts the mug and the book down on the side table, pushes himself to a slow stand, shaking his head slightly in disbelief, and shifts a step towards him. "Harry—"_

 

_"Marry me," Harry repeats, sleep-rough and quiet, and confirms that he hasn't heard it wrong._

 

_For a moment, Draco stands still right where he is._

 

_And then his mouth flickers into a small, helpless and wobbling sort of smile, his throat burning. "Okay."_

 

_Harry blinks, as if surprised, as if he doesn't already know that the answer can never be anything else. "Okay?"_

 

_Draco laughs, his face split into a grin. He crosses the last of the distance, plops down on one knee on the bed and grabs Harry's face as he says, "Yes, you dolt. Okay."_

 

_Harry laughs too, then, and it's hard to kiss him properly because he doesn't stop grinning and laughing, and neither does Draco, and their teeth and noses keep knocking together, but it doesn"t stop either of them, too lost in love and joy to care._

_..._

 

He worries about his mother. He misses his mother. He rages about Severus' fate. He mourns Severus' loss. He mourns his father's death. He relives and mourns over a life of love and joy that will never happen. He wonders if it'd be better if he never came back from it.  He relives the months in the cellar that felt as long as another life all on its own. He thinks of all the things he wants to say to his father. He grieves that he never will.

 

He misses Harry.

 

He misses Potter.

 

Draco thinks of all these things all the time, in no particular order, and in no way stopping, no matter how hard he tries to quiet his mind.

 

He watches the perfect life play out on grey walls again, in his mind, the dreams he wished he had died dreaming. He lived seventy-four years. He would have lived a couple of more, and then he would have died there as he died out here, but he would have been grey and old and content with a life well lived, with Harry beside him. Not alone. Never alone.

 

There his mother lived well and happy, carefree and unworried about Draco, unhaunted by the traumas brought into her own home by evil. She passed away old and smiling.

 

There he had had a father that he meant something good to, and when he died, he died with love and pride for him in his heart and in his eyes and in his last words, not shame and disgust and disappointment.

 

There Severus lived a long life, a better life than the one he got, and he didn't die with Draco so young, with Draco having spent less than a quarter of his life with him. There he remembered no torture and suffering and degradation. There was no Dark Lord and Death-Eaters and darkness.

 

There, he had Harry, had everything. He had love and laughter and joy, everything he wanted here. He had the glint in his green eyes, tender and lit with fondness, and his kisses and his arms around him and a hushed smile only for him, his hands in his hair, hands that held his own, hands that pulled him into a spontaneous dance out of nowhere.

 

...

 

Draco thinks he's going insane, his mind rotted and aching from always thinking, his heart rotted and aching from always feeling, his lungs aching and stiff and drowning in water from always crying.

 

It's happening again, for the fourth time this week, that thing that happens when the rattling panic sets into his body and chest and he forgets how to breathe right until he's gasping and panting for air, but now he's crying too while he's forgotten how to breathe and he's gasping and panting for air, so he can hardly breathe at all, sobbing until they become soundless from lack of air. He curls up on the bed, dragging his heavy, uncooperative, shaking arms and legs painstakingly into his chest, as if he can protect himself from the walls closing in around him or as if he can ease something inside himself until he could breathe again.

 

But Draco's mind is screaming again. His body is screaming too. He thinks he might be screaming too, or perhaps he's trying to, but it's not coming out because there's no air left for him to, his shoulders and his arms trembling so much they look like small earthquakes, and then he throws his arms out of his chest and throws them unceremoniously over his head, uncoordinated elbows knocking together, crying, his heart hammering like it'll jump out of his sternum. He thinks he might be bleeding inside. He thinks he might be dying.

 

He isn't sure why he thought he could do it. Be alone here. Be without Potter when he was the only thing keeping him sane with his teasing smiles, his reassuring grins, his attempts to converse and his banter and his never-ending chatter that kept Draco out of his own mind, or even just sitting there in silence for hours, with only an awareness of his quietly comforting presence, the very fucking _sight_ of him that made something settle inside of Draco into a sort of calm and safety and _okay, everything is okay_ , because he had meant soft kisses and wild dancing and unbridled laughter in another life.

 

He's always known somewhere in him, always known Potter's the only reason he isn't falling to pieces of himself yet, but he thought… he thought he could do it. Do it on his own. That it was better that he did it on his own. That having Potter here only meant false hopes and yearning for what will never be his and hurt, a whole life of hurt.

 

Instead he's alone, and it's dark and silent and empty, and he can't breathe can't _fucking breathe_ even though he's trying so hard to pull it into his lungs slowly and deeply, and Draco's fucked up so much, said so many things he shouldn't have said and been nothing but ungrateful, and what if he changes his mind, what if he never comes back because he's tired and he's _done_ and Draco never breathes right ever again—

 

"Malfoy?"

 

...

 

Harry thinks he doesn't hear it over the sound of his own shuddering and gasping sob when air finally comes to him, uses up all of it, and then it's gone again. Harry steps forward, once, twice, before breaking into a haste, reaching Malfoy and helplessly putting his hands on his shoulders, and then fumbling to gently tug his arms off his head, murmuring, _it's alright. It's alright_ , hoping if Malfoy sees him, maybe he'd calm down some like the day when he woke up. When he tries to release his grip, realizing what a mistake that might just be, Draco throws his hands out to grapple over Harry's shirt instead, fists catching and clutching tightly, still hunched over into himself on his side, still choking on terror and pain and still crying.

 

"I'm sorry. Don'—" he cries between the hitches of sobbing pants, his voice trembling and strangled and desperate. "Don' leave me—"

 

"Alright. It's alright. I'm here, I'm not leaving—"

 

Harry feels awkward and helpless, the room heavily suffocating with sorrow and fear. He hadn't thought it would be this bad, and the guilt drops like stones in his chest. When words fail him, when words don't seem to help in anyway, his desperation to somehow show that he meant his words, to somehow hush the aggrieved and panicked cries and pleas, leads him to grab the thinner boy by the back and pull them both down on the bed together. Malfoy drags his limbs over and clutches blindly at his torso, but he's not talking anymore, just crying soundlessly hard into Harry's chest, the tears seeping through warm into his skin.

 

In a strange, hysterical train of thought, it occurs to him that he is right now essentially cuddling with a boy, and not just any boy, but cuddling with bloody _Draco Malfoy,_  which is the strangest sentence he might have ever thought to himself. He would have given anyone who'd have told him this would happen a year ago his best _what in the fuck are those sounds that just came out of your mouth right now_ look, and yet, here he is.

 

He holds the boy, still and silent, as if worried that if he moved or spoke again, it would remind both of them, remind Malfoy of just what is happening right now and how strange it is, the two of them hardly even friends and holding each other in a way they've hardly ever held anyone else.

 

Strange as it is, it's not as uncomfortable as it should have been, Harry supposes. It could have felt a lot worse. It should have felt a lot worse. He'd have thought it'd feel a lot worse. But Malfoy's surprisingly warm and soft, not all ice and stone the way he acted.

 

And right now, Harry isn't thinking of him as the pale and pointed boy from years ago that hated him and sneered awful taunts unbiddenly and carelessly, but the boy who was thrown into the darkness of a black world before he even grew up and understood what hid in it (a bit like Harry himself, perhaps), and whose bones jut out of his skin now and whose fatigue-bruised eyes sink into his sockets and who's seen and felt things no one should ever see or feel in their lives, who looked a lot smaller in his mother's arms than he really was, whose father cared about a lot of things more than he cared for his son, who woke up one day and found out he lost almost everyone he's ever loved.

 

…

 

Draco hadn't been ready to let him leave yet the night before, so soon after a whole week, embarrassed as he was to be found the way he did and to have caught his sleeve viscerally before Harry could slide off the bed, and then, so exhausted he couldn't even speak, he promptly fell asleep, fingers loosening but not letting go.

 

Potter must have tried to spend the night sitting beside Draco against the headboard of the bed in what initially must have been an awkward and uncomfortable slumber. Half-way through the night, however, he must have found his way back to being horizontal somehow, because as if Draco hadn't already humiliated himself enough, he'd found himself wrapped around Potter the next morning yet again, before he tried to untangle as much as his crippled body allowed, which unfortunately caused much jostling and woke Potter, who then scrambled up groggily into a sitting position, eyes still closed, head lolling off his neck, his glasses skewed and hair flying up all over, looking stupidly ad—

 

Well, Draco blames it on Potter this time. Always the saint, too good for his own good. Most normal people would never bother to spend whole nights with their old childhood rivals in a hospital bed, and yet, Potter... bloody bleeding heart Potter…

 

But Merlin he was warm and beautiful.

 

Draco considers the very irritating fact that Potter now has something he could use against him, a raw and below-the-belt sort of thing that Draco wouldn't put it past him if he ever decided to take full advantage of it.

 

"Why'd you keep pushing me away?" Potter asks. He'd gone back to the Weasley Burrows at some point and come back with a fresher face and his clothes changed.

 

"I figured I would hurry up the inevitable." _I thought it would hurt less that way if it felt like a choice._ He sees that he's wrong now, because it's going to hurt like hell either way. There's no way around it. "You won't stay long here."

 

He doesn't say any of that though. He can't ever say any of that.

 

"And you just…" Potter shrugged. "decided that all on your own, then?"

 

"Isn't it obvious?"

 

 

Potter had no reason to stay with someone like him, after all, former Death and childhood rival that had done nothing but make him and his friends miserable.

 

"Is it?" Potter responds with an arched eyebrow.

 

Draco shrugs.

 

"Well…" Potter struggles for words. "I mean. You're wrong, but okay." He pauses. "Honestly, I don't think that makes much sense to me. You were alright with me the first day, I think, and _then_ you got mad at me for something."

 

"I'd just learned that I hardly had a family left, Potter... my entire family, dead and arrested, and all I had was you. And you don't even give a damn about me."

 

Potter's forehead furrows. "I do give a damn, Malfoy. It's why I'm here, aren't I?"

 

Draco scoffs. "Do you?"

 

He'd said it then, on the day Draco came back. _I owed it to your mother,_  like it had only been a debt paid, like Potter wouldn't have bothered otherwise. And if Draco is being fair, he didn't exactly have the right to blame him for not caring as much as he wanted him to. Not after everything. But he did.

 

_You don't love me the way you did there._

 

"You'd have left me for dead if you could," Draco says softly. He might as well just say it to him, let him know that Draco's well aware of just how easy it's going to be for Potter to walk away.

 

The silence that follows seems like affirmation. _Got you now, Potter._

 

Except he doesn't feel triumphant at all.

 

"So, I risked my arse to save you…" Potter's got that expression on his face, like he's not sure what he's just heard. "...because I don't give a damn if you're living or dead."

 

"The only reason either of us are here is because of my mother."

 

Harry squints. "I mean...yes. We'd all be dead without her."

 

Draco snorts. Potter smiles a bit as well.

 

"Tell me honestly, Potter," Draco says, looking at him intently. "If you didn't feel indebted to my mother, would you have ever bothered to come for me?"

 

Potter's staring at him, a pinched line between his brows.

 

"No, you wouldn't have," Draco answers for him. "It would have hardly been a tragedy for you to find out your Death-Eater childhood rival was tortured and dead. So stop pretending otherwise."

 

"That's not true," Potter says softly. He shakes his head. "That day at the Manor...when you asked me to help you… I decided right then and there that I was going to save you. And I couldn't do it then, I know. I never meant to leave you behind, and I'm sorry for that—"

 

"I don't begrudge you and your friends for saving your own lives." Self-preservation is a very Slytherin trait, one quite ingrained in Draco himself. He could hardly fault anyone else for being the same. Even if it hurt then, Draco knows now that he would have been a burden, anyway. There wasn't much point in dragging him around and dragging themselves down too. "I only begrudged you for the thought that you might never come back."

 

"I did come back."

 

"You did."

 


	9. Ostendam Astronomia

"Potter?"

 

Potter hums distractedly, watching that muggle entertainment box that they call a tee-vee, that Draco still doesn't entirely understand how it works. There are some people inside the tee-vee right now, conversing with one another. The image keeps changing directions to show one face or the other, depending on who's talking. He keeps wanting to ask Potter about it, but he still feels strange showing any curiosity over muggle items, still hasn't quite let go of the shame etched in feeling anything positively towards them.

 

Right now, though, he has an entirely different question that's been nagging at him for some time.

 

"Why'd you tell the Minister to go fuck himself?"

 

Potter freezes. The look of growing mortification on his face is quite the priceless look.

 

"You heard that?" Potter asks, looking at him.

 

"I listen." Draco shrugs.

 

"You do?" Potter straightens, seeming somewhat stiff. "Listen to everyone around you?"

 

Draco knows he's said some things he didn't count on him listening to when he went away from everything around him, things Potter only told him because he thought he wouldn't hear, about war and death and grief, Dumbledore and Sirius and Fred and Dobby, about his loneliness at times even in the midst of beloved family and friends. Draco has to wonder, just how lonely and repressed does one have to feel to only talk about such things with someone he hopes isn't listening, someone that Potter would never trust if he were sober. He's learned more about Potter than he ever thought he could here.

 

"Not to everyone." The words come out before he can think, and then he feels mortified himself at the admittance.

 

But it's true. His connection and comprehension of everything in the present moment falls away, everything except Potter's voice. He's so disconnected with himself and the world around him, he can hardly react to anything in those moments, but his mind eventually begins to stick onto Potter's regales and quiet confessions, onto his voice, Harry's voice, the voice he's known decades of, changing and growing, and loved every word of.

 

Potter's now smiling, a small glimpse of teeth between his soft and pink mouth as it teeters on a light grin.

 

"Don't get so bloated, Potter," Draco mutters, through the flush of heat running from his neck and ears. He swallows. "You have a very distinctly annoying voice, as if it forces my brain to—to hyperfocus on it."

 

Potter nods, like he's just humoring him. "Right."

 

Draco nods. Whatever. Let Potter think whatever foolishness he wants. "Right. You still didn't answer my question."

 

Potter's half-grin slips slightly, and Draco feels a strange sort of remorse for letting it die, wishing he'd let Potter's smile last for as long as possible. He could want to be the reason for it forever. He _had_ been the reason for it forever, in another life.

 

"They…" Potter trails off, clearly reluctant to tell. "You know what? It's not important, Malfoy."

 

"Well, by saying _that_ , you just made it even more important for me to know." Draco shoots him a sort of shite-eating grin when Potter rolls his eyes.

 

Potter chewed on his lower lip slightly. When his teeth let go, they become slightly swollen, and Draco is suddenly very, very much aware of them again. "The Aurors… they didn't want to look for you. I went to him thinking I could, you know, sway him as the Golden Boy or whatever. He didn't listen, kept saying there was nothing he could do. I think..." Potter's expression is all sincere remorse and contriteness. "I think he would have tried if it wasn't you. He was very eager until he heard what I wanted from him."

 

The reason is fairly obvious to Draco, and it doesn't make it any better, but he's mostly stuck on the fact that Potter did that for _him._ But he's been stuck on a lot of things, like the thought that Potter cried for him (and had been the one to wake him) and had wanted to get him out since the day he saw him at the Manor, the thought that Potter might just give a damn about him after all somehow, for some reason.

 

"Oh. Bastard."

 

Potter laughs slightly at the rather dignified reaction, head bowing down with it as his shoulders quiver. As he does, Draco lets the smile slip out onto his own lips a little for a few seconds, watching him openly in the comfort of the knowing that he wouldn't see the ache of decades worth of adoration on his face.

 

…

 

_Pansy's about to explode beside him, it looks like. Harry doesn't seem to notice just how much his rambling is getting on her nerves. Frankly, Draco thinks she can go sod off somewhere else because his boyfriend— Merlin's Beard, still ought to get used to that, it's really happened, hasn't it—is quite the sight when his face is lit up like this. Simply gorgeous. Harry's not the most excitable person, mostly moderate in his emotional expressions, so when he does get like this, it's even more beautiful and better._

 

_He's mostly just still high off his Quidditch victory, exhilaration based on residual adrenaline, skin glistening in the light from the sheen of sweat covering him, as he tells Draco quite elaborately all about the match he couldn't be at to watch due to his extracurriculars. He's sorry about missing it, but not entirely if he gets to see Harry like this._

 

_"No one cares," Pansy mutters under her breath. Draco elbows her in the ribs, disguising it under a shift of his body position so Harry doesn't notice. She grunts in discomfort and surprise, and then grimaces at him with a tight, annoyed smile. The bitch is just mad she's third-wheeling because Harry showed up in the middle of her time with Draco to babble about his Quidditch match, which Draco is always going to be far more interested in than the ten hottest wizards featured in Wizard Weekly._

 

 _"_ _—and this is where it gets intense, Draco. Because, see, they're one score away from being on our level, but then Ron does this crazy swoop and—and sort of flip—I don't even know what he did, I don't think he knew what he did either, honestly, but it was the_ best bloody thing—"

 

_Draco, when the swollen tender thing writhing in his chest lurches his body and hands forward, grabs the bloody beautiful green-eyed git by the chin and pulls him in for a deep kiss, startling Harry quiet. By the next second, he's snogging him back with equal fervor, his head tilting forward to press their mouths harder together, Draco's moving backward by the force, noses knocking together._

 

_With one sharp inhale, they break apart, Harry soft-eyed and flushed pink and glowing yellow underneath the afternoon sunlight. Draco feels just the way Harry's looking at him in that moment._

 

_Harry's nose scrunches up sheepishly. "I, um… I was rambling, wasn't I?"_

 

_Draco scrunches his nose up too in a mimicry, nodding and fighting back the smile threatening to break out on his cheeks._

 

_Harry rubs the back of his neck with an embarrassed laugh. "Was that to shut me up?"_

 

 _"Partially." Even though he probably would have sat here all day, listening and watching, but Draco had to at least_ try _not to show just how weak Harry made him. "Mostly, I wanted to kiss you." Oh. His voice comes out too soft. Well, nevermind then._

 

_Harry seems to have forgotten his self-consciousness there. He grins stupidly wide, leans forward on his hands to the grass and kisses him again._

 

_"That was cute," he hears Pansy say loudly to them over their snogging. She pauses, and then mutters, "I puked in my mouth a little."_

 

_…._

 

Harry's thought about this, even though he feels like it's a very arsehole thing to do. But just because it _feels_ like an arsehole thing to do doesn't mean it _isn't_ the right thing to do, right?

 

If Malfoy wants to get well and get out of here as soon as possible, he needs to overcome his fear of wands, and that's not going to happen unless he's pushed into facing it.

 

He turns over Malfoy's wand in his hands, head bowed. His gaze flicks up from behind the tousle of his hair hanging in his eyes, peering at Malfoy's form on the bed.

 

Harry walks inside the room slowly.

 

"I went to see your mother the other day," Harry says, by way of greeting. Malfoy's head shifts imperceptibly in the direction of his voice. "She gave me your wand."

 

Malfoy's shoulders tense up visibly, grey eyes darting over to him. Harry strengthens his resolve and steps in closer, twirling the wand casually in his hand.

 

"Whatever would I need it for right now, Potter?" Malfoy says guardedly, tracking his movements, flickering between his face and the wand in his hand.

 

"You can't get better fast if you don't face it, Malfoy."

 

"Potter—"

 

"Just do one thing for me, will you? Or for yourself." Harry settles down on the chair. Malfoy recoils at the sight of the wand so close, breaths quickening with panic, wide-eyed and fixated on the threat. "Try. Try to hold it, just once. It's _your_ wand, Malfoy."

 

"I don't want it," Malfoy snarls at him, anger and hurt blazing in his gaze alongside terror. "So just—just get it the bloody hell away from me, will you?"

 

"Malfoy, it can't hurt you if you're the one holding it," Harry says reasonably, moving the wand closer to him as an offer. Malfoy jerks back, now shaking violently and full out panicking, unable to look away but unable to handle the sight of it.

 

"This isn't funny—" He sounds as if he's struggling to speak through something stuck in his throat, choking his air and his words down.

 

"Good. Because I'm not kidding." Harry grips his wrist and tugs at it. Malfoy tugs it back as hard as he could, frantically trying to twist it out of his grasp.

 

"Potter. Potter, please—" Malfoy cries pleadingly when he doesn't manage to get his hand out of Harry's grip. His crumpled and pinked face quickly twists away from the scene when the wand touches his fingers, jolting as if he got shocked, eyes squeezed shut as if he could avoid what's happening by avoiding the sight of it as he _sobbed_. Harry swallows and pushes through the rather suffocating weight of the boulder on his chest. The tremors in Malfoy's fingers are so bad Harry can hardly keep his own hand still around them.

 

"Malfoy," Harry murmurs, soft and reassuring, closing Malfoy's fingers around the bottom part of the wand and closing his fingers over the top of his to stop him from letting it go. "Malfoy, it's alright. It's alright. Just—look."

 

Harry doesn't know if the wand will work at his command. It seems risky, because if Malfoy's wand ends up disobeying Harry completely, perhaps by doing something that puts Malfoy off from the idea of ever touching a wand again, then it's done, and Harry's not sure if he can try this again. He already feels like the world's biggest arsehole, and for it to go _wrong_ would just make him feel like shite even more.

 

" _Ostendam Astronomia,_ " Harry whispers over Malfoy's panicked, gasping breaths next to him, gently flicking the wand in their hands, even as it shakes in their combined grip.

 

Upon the command of the whispered spell, rich dark blue threads of glowing light spill out of the tip of the wand, growing rapidly into a vast, translucent night sky that expands over their heads, which were leaning closely together. Luminescent, twinkling dots of different intensities and sizes and colors scatter themselves over the swathe of black, beautiful and breathtaking. Malfoy's breaths are gradually beginning to ease down next to him. When Harry looks over at him, he sees that over the fear is something quiet slowly blinking its way into his silver eyes, red-rimmed and glistening lashes. The dim starlights are reflecting off the reluctant, hushed awe of his face.

 

Harry swallows, smiles a small smile, pleased that the wand works perfectly for him. Perhaps it knows the need of it, fully willing to do what it must if it helped its master. He looks to the sky again and raises the wand slightly, only quivering now. " _Draco._ " He sees Malfoy's head twitch slightly in his direction at the sound of his first name. It occurs Harry that he's never said it out loud, not in front of him at least.

 

The stars dispersed without pattern begin to rearrange themselves, forming the clear shape of a large, exotic dragon head.

 

"There," Harry says softly. "That's you up there, isn't it?"

 

Malfoy's swallow is audible, but he doesn't speak. He blinks rapidly, watching the twinkling constellation.

 

He looks over at Harry, meeting silver with green, hushed and mellow in his open vulnerability and raw emotion. Harry smiles at him, vaguely noticing Malfoy's eyes fluttering downwards to follow the gesture.

 

His smile fades there, gaze leaving Malfoy's as he thinks carefully of how to say what he wants to say in the momentary silence.

 

"I—I know they hurt you, Malfoy," Harry begins with quietly. "But it wasn't the wand that did, you know. It was people. And it's easier for me to say it, I know, and I'm not expecting you to just—just forget it all. Of course not. I know it'll take a lot of time before you can look at a wand and not see only pain and fear." Harry breathes, hand twitching over Malfoy's. "But perhaps… perhaps if you can try to remember whenever you need to, that for all the evil that can be done with it, it can do so much good too... that magic can be beautiful if it isn't used by people with ugly hearts."

 

Malfoy blinks, a residual, unshed tear leaking out of his eye down the corner as he does.

 

Harry slowly, carefully lets go of the wand and Malfoy's hand, like he's moving his hand out of something fragile and balanced on a thin surface.

 

Malfoy's silent, fingers beginning to quiver again. Harry waits patiently, trying not to lose hope.

 

And then.

 

" _Canis Major._ "

 

Harry's heart twists in melded grief and affection as he watches the stars rearrange again, forming the unmistakable shape of a dog, black in the color of the sky. The stars of its eye wink down at Harry.

 

In the Canis Major is a star named Sirius _._ Whenever Harry misses his godfather so much that he doesn't know what to do with all his sorrow and mourn, he casts the spell in the room and looks for the brightest and the biggest star in the constellation. Sirius. The Dog star. And he imagines it's him, his godfather, watching over him. Sometimes it's the only comfort to him, strengthening the idea that the people who die are never really gone forever.

 

Harry doesn't know if this is deliberate on Malfoy's part, if he knew what he was doing, if it was, somehow, to make Harry happy in some way. It seems a bit strange to think, Malfoy wanting to do anything to make him happy, but the connection has to have occurred to Malfoy.

 

Either way, when Harry looks at him, they share a tentative smile and, perhaps, an understanding that neither of them once thought possible.

 

...

 

_"See that? That's you up there," Harry whispers into his ear, cheek to the side of his head. He's pointing at a pattern in the sky, that if looked closely, resembles a great dragon's head. "Draco."_

 

_"I sure hope I don't look like a dragon's head to you, Harry," Draco drawls, burrowing his back down into Harry's chest, arms on top of his arms wrapped around his abdomen._

 

_Harry chuckles. "No. But it's what you're named after, isn't it? And you know, you do look like a dragon's head when you're mad. Like really mad. All eyes blown wide and glaring like you're about to eat someone out of spite and—and nostrils flared like you're about to breathe fire—"_

 

_"Oi!" Draco exclaims indignantly, trying to twist around and get his arms out from underneath Harry's to poke him or hit him somewhere, but Harry just fumbles over them and grips them tighter to immobilize him, snickering into the side of his neck. Draco, having  no other way to exact vengeance, cants his head forward and bites his jaw, and not in the pleasurable way._

 

_"Ow!" Harry yelps, letting go of Draco with one arm to rub at the spot._

 

_"Don't be an arse." Draco points a finger in his face._

 

_"Alright, alright." Harry laughs and presses a kiss, two, to his cheek, and then to his jaw. "But I thought you'd be happy that I find you terrifying when you're mad."_

 

_"You should be terrified, yes. But I don't like your descriptions. It makes me sound like— I don't know, just... not very flattering."_

 

_Harry snorts, presses one hard kiss to his mouth and says, "Nutter."_

 

_"Prat."_

 

_Draco leans back against Harry, letting him push his nose to the shoulder of his black button-up shirt. They watch the stars twinkle down at the Quidditch pitch in the endless vastitude of the night sky, the half-moon glowing between them all._

 

_"What does 'Potter' mean?" Draco asks, having never thought about it._

 

_"I don't know," Harry hums contentedly. "Probably someone that makes pots or whatever. Pots. Potter. Very boring." Draco smirks, but makes a mental note to read on it later._

 

**_..._ **

  

"What did you see there?" Potter questions, watching the tee-vee very intently, a little too intently, as if trying to hide his curiosity. Despite the unclear question, Draco works it out right away. "In your dreams, I mean?"

 

He tries not to look at Potter, and says, "Everything I ever wanted."

 

"I already know that," Potter says. "But what is _everything you wanted_?"

 

"Has anyone ever told you that you're extremely nosy, Potter?"

 

Potter flicks a grin and a glance in his direction before looking back to the tee-vee. "Might have."

 

Draco sighs, exasperatedly. "Well, now someone definitely has."

 

"Was I there?" Potter asks, a sort of mirthful, teasing smile curving on his lips.

 

Draco stops.

 

Meeting the most beautiful young boy he's ever seen in a robe shop of Diagon Alley. Holding hands in trains and running through crowded halls. Being the favorite of someone he favored above all else. Emerald-green eyes behind rounded glasses that crinkled fondly at him. Watching one another across Great Dining Halls, catching eyes while they're laughing and grinning and talking with someone else, focus falling away from them as they share a secret smile with each other. Snow angels and snowball fights and almost-kisses outside Honeydukes. Soft kisses on Quidditch fields, under stars at night where nobody else existed. Warm hands tangled together and warmer smiles and grins and laughter. Weddings where his family smiled at him as he walked down the aisle, proud and full of love. Smooth expanse of skin, pressed to him as they huddled together in bed, snogging, making love at night before sleeping, in mornings before work. Wild dancing under Christmas lights and wild raven hair and wild, off-tune singing. Growing old and grey and fighting over who gets to leave the other first.

 

"You were," Draco says, so softly he doesn't know if Har—Potter heard him, hopes he didn't, because somehow the love and emotion of every faux memory he brought with him from that faux life has come together to collect into those two words.

 

_You were the love of my life._

 

"Oh." Potter raises an eyebrow, surprised, like he'd been expecting the negative. "I mean. Um. What was I doing there?"

 

Draco doesn't say anything. He tries to think up some lie, but he's not able to think yet from the flood of emotions still overwhelming him. He wishes he'd just said Potter wasn't there at all.

 

"I was better at Quidditch than you," Draco mutters, lamely, not being able to think of anything else to say. It doesn't even answer the question. Thankfully, Potter doesn't disappoint with his incredible obliviousness.

 

Potter grins a shite-eating grin. "You see, that's why it's a dream, Malfoy."

 

Draco narrows his eyes, affronted and annoyed at himself for walking right into that one. "I'd hit you if it wouldn't hurt me more than it'd hurt you. Also, no, I meant I was better at Quidditch _there_ too. As in, both here _and_ there."

 

Potter mock-considers. "Your team won against mine, how many times, exactly?"

 

Draco tries to remember, but it's hard to remember small, tedious details like that after the dreams and its skewed sense of time in between and having to juggle two sets of memories. He does remember, however, that Potter had often gotten very lucky in their Quidditch matches.

 

"You know, Potter," Draco says, smirking as if he knows something Potter doesn't. He knows just how to make Potter shut up. "You actually _did_ have quite the role there."

 

Potter's green eyes squint at the sly expression on Draco's face. "Okay. Um. As—as what, exactly?"

 

"It's best you don't know," Draco says, with a tight, ironically sympathetic smile. He shifts his head to stare at the ceiling dramatically. "Let's keep it that way."

 

Potter cocks his head and a wary eyebrow. "You know what, Malfoy?" he says slowly. "I think I'll take your word for it."

 

Draco smirks. "Good choice."

 

**…**

 

_Under the yellow Christmas glow, surrounded by fairy lights on walls and on a long, decorated Christmas tree, with the record player down and spinning in circles, Draco's laughter rings out over the upbeat tune playing throughout the room as Harry rocks them both side to side, one pair of their hands tangled together. His other hand is settled on the side of Draco's waist, laughing along with him into the side of his neck, and then starts singing wild and off-tune again._

 

 

_"You are mad, Harry James Potter-Malfoy," Draco manages to get out through the breathlessness of laughing so hard his lungs ached and his gut seized, his eyes watering, still grinning and letting out mirthful huffs. Harry chuckles, slowing their dancing, now only stumbling side-to-side together, so he could grip Draco's waist with both his hands and tug him in even closer to his own body, warms chests and stomachs meeting._

 

_"Only for you, darling," Harry mumbles against Draco's lips, trapping his own lower one behind his grin, noses nuzzling lightly against the other's. He leans in, raising himself a little on his toes, and fits his mouth against Draco's smile in a soft kiss as the song plays on in the background._

 

 

_…_

 

"It's alright," Harry murmurs, pushing back his chair as he gets off to kneel down on the ground, his face close in front of Malfoy's so he's all he sees and his hands clutching the edge of the bed. He's come to accept that Malfoy finds the sight of him calming for some reason, perhaps due to being the only familiar thing left in a world that's grown a stranger to him.

 

Malfoy's trembling anxiously, his chin crumpled in terror, eyes clenched shut as Areen lifts the back of his shirt up, wand in her hand, her expression resolute and set. He's scooted as close to the edge of the bed as he could, in some attempt to get away but not getting away all that far, shaking hands fisted into the sheets and into his mouth as if to muffle himself. He's agreed all on his own to let the Healer use spells, but Harry supposes it's not easy to let go of a deep fear that developed and deepened over the course of months in only a day or two.

 

"Teddy," Harry whispers to him, something, anything to get Malfoy's mind off of his terror. "Teddy's six months old now, and he's already learning how to sit. Most babies don't learn to sit until they're at least seven months, you know, but Teddy… I think Teddy's going to be extraordinary."

 

Areen mumbles a complicated healing spell that Harry barely catches over his own murmurs, her wand roving over Malfoy's back. Upon hearing her incantations, and the discomfort and pain of whatever needs to be set right setting, Malfoy gasps out, hands letting go of the sheets and scrambling to grip Harry's on the edge of the bed instead. His flushed face crumples into the tangle of their hands, his body rattling in his anxiety and his eyes squeezed shut.

 

"I know all godfathers say that about their godchildren, maybe, I don't know. I know it sounds like I'm being biased. But I don't think that's it. I really feel like he's going to be exceptional somehow. Your nephew. He's so smart already, and so kind and good. He saw… I got a papercut the other day and he saw it and tried to kiss it better." Harry laughs softly, fondly. "Can you imagine? Just a little baby, and feeling and understanding so much already?"

 

Malfoy grits his teeth, wincing in more pain and discomfort as Areen mutters more spells, carefully tapping his seized up back—muscle atrophy, blood clots, physical effects of being under the Cruciatus curse regularly for too long on his spine and the muscles of his back, malnutrition, incorrectly healed dislocated or broken bones that need to be reset back the right way—she's told Harry all of it.

 

"He's changing his hair colour now. I think I told you that already," Harry says. "Do you know just how much easier it is to care for an infant when every reason they cry has a specific hair colour?"

 

Areen steps back then, finally, tugging Malfoy's shirt back down. She puts her wand back into her Healer robes. "I think that's enough for now."

 

"L-lovely," Malfoy whispers to Harry, feeble and breathless from lack of sufficient air and stuttering with his tremors, revealing smoke-grey eyes again. He swallows and nods, once, his lips uplifting only a fraction through the twisted mouth, and yet, possibly the most genuine smile Harry has ever seen on his face. "He sounds...lovely… Potter."

 

…

 

The Weaslette is here to visit Potter today, bringing him lunch from home. It's usually her brother, the Ron Weasley one that is, that comes by to do this, taking Harry along out of the room for a while, but for whatever reason, he can't today.

 

"Would you two get the fuck out of my face when you're doing that?" Draco snarls at the snogging couple in front of him. His mood is particularly terrible today, and it started when the bloody ginger minger showed up, and now she's bloody kissing Potter right in front of his face as if she's mocking him that she's the one that has what should be Draco's. "Can't even fucking turn away…"

 

Potter has the decency to quickly break apart from her. His expression grows sheepish. "Oh, sorry."

 

Ginger minger's looking exasperated and annoyed, lips pressed together in a line, but seems to be making an attempt to control her temper. Hah. She'd sound like a total nutter if she yelled at a man in a hospital bed, which means Draco can say just about anything to her and she can't do a damn thing about it.

 

"Did mummy never teach you that it's rude to snog in public?" Draco snaps at her. Potter raises an eyebrow. "Especially when you're terrible at it? I'd have thrown up what little I ate if I had to watch _that_ continue for another second."

 

"Close your eyes then, Malfoy," Potter retorts, defensive of her as he wraps an arm around her. "Nobody's telling you to watch."

 

"No."

 

Granger shows up then, and Potter has to go speak with her, and the way they both glance over at him makes him assume it's most probably something related to his case.

 

Weaslette catches his flat gaze and his repulsed sneer fixated on her.

 

"Got dung under your nose, Malfoy?"

 

"I've got dung in my line of sight right now, she-Weasel," Draco grits out without hesitation.

 

Weaslette closes her eyes, as if trying to summon patience. Draco smirks mirthlessly upon seeing her riled up. Serves her right. She opens her eyes and smiles tightly, her jaw set and teeth grinded. "I'll just get out of your way then, I suppose."

 

Draco throws her a mocking smile. "Lovely."

 

Weaslette walks out of the room, standing a few feet away from Potter outside and crossing her arms across her chest as she waits for Granger and Potter's conversation to be over. 

 

But it's her that Potter holds hands with, after Granger leaves, moving closer to her as he sees her ruined mood. He glances through the open door at Draco, brows furrowed and lips pursed, even as she shakes her head and steps closer to him. It's her he looks back to, his irritation with Draco dissipating as tenderness fills its place for her. It's her that he talks to while smiling like he's so terribly in love with her he doesn't know what to do with himself, her he wraps his arms around the waist of as he laughs with her and kisses her softly.

 

Draco does close his eyes then, like Potter told him to, turning his head into the pillow and wishing he couldn't feel things, wishing he was as cold and stone-hearted as he acted he was, as he used to occasionally manage to be towards Potter and stupid, pointless things like love (things he can't ever have more than dreams of, can't ever have in reality). He tries to go to sleep, but he ends up thinking about his dreams instead, where he was the one that stood where she stood.

  


	10. You Were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for one vague reference to past sexual abuse/rape

In the next month, Draco makes much progress. He's started to speak to Theo and Goyle on their visits. There isn't much to talk about, and Draco finds it difficult at times to muster the mental energy of keeping up conversations too long, but Theo talks about his jobs and his plans for the future and Goyle talks about being hired at a wizard restaurant as a chef and about a co-worker that he has a crush on. He listens, but eventually, he gets quite exhausted. Draco gets better enough to be able to walk, but only with support. He craves to see the world outside again, having only known walls for too long.

 

So Potter, with begrudging and reluctant permission of Areen after much persuasion, obliges his request and takes him outside to backyard of the hospital, due to bring him back in two hours at most.

 

Draco lays down on the grass because he still can't muster the energy and self-support to sit up on his own for long periods of time, so Potter drops down on his back beside him too. He is so close that Draco can line up the side of their bodies if he shifts a bit closer to him, but he doesn't do that.

 

"So what happens after?" Potter questions. Draco hums inquisitively at the vague question. "After the trial?"

 

After a bout of silence, Draco says softly, "You speak as if we know there's an after." He shrugs. "For all I know, I just got out of one cellar only to be moved into another."

 

Draco doesn't know what he's going to do if he has to go to Azkaban. He doesn't know if he'll survive another prison, one where someone like him, hardly a fighter and far too delicate in appearance and weak in physical stature, are eaten for breakfast, where they do things like what Rowle and Greyback did to him just as easily.

 

Draco swallows down the sickness from his stomach to his throat, his insides lurching violently. He might throw up if he even breathes too hard.

 

"That's not going to happen," Potter says, with a quiet and certain conviction that almost makes Draco believe him.

 

Draco shrugs again, but it's too off and half-hearted. He stays silent, trying to seem unfazed and like he isn't already contemplating jumping off a high edge at the thought of going to Azkaban. Nonetheless, he'd rather save himself the embarrassment of getting emotional and vulnerable as much as he can in front of Potter, now that it's happened one too many times.

 

"Hey, it _won't_ ," Potter insists. "I'm the Golden Boy, remember? They won't ignore my testament."

 

"Perhaps they'll cut down from a life sentence to several decades," Draco says. "It doesn't guarantee anything, does it?"

 

"I could take you and run," Potter offers, staring up at the expanse of the blue, cloudy sky, and it may be a joke more than anything, but it does something strange to Draco's heart, a sort of flip and a flutter, to think Potter would ever consider running away with him to anywhere.

 

…

 

Draco wakes up to find Granger again instead of Potter in the chair next to him, a book in her lap that she looks up from when he stirs on the bed.

 

"Teddy's sick," Granger says as explanation the moment her eyes meet his, as if she knows he's wondering. He hopes she's only assumed and hasn't seen right through him like glass. She's far too intelligent, and Draco can't put it past her. "Harry's staying to help take care of him."

 

Draco hopes the boy feels better soon. His nephew. Teddy's his nephew. He's learned a lot about the baby through Potter to the point where he already feels like he knows him, despite having never met him. He hopes he gets to meet him, if he doesn't go to Azkaban, that is.

 

The two collapse back into silence, the one prevalent with her visits, not comfortable nor uncomfortable, but simply a lack of words to exchange because neither of them care to.

 

Now, however, Draco does have things to say, but Granger goes back to reading her book, as if having no expectations of a conversation occurring between them. Draco can hardly blame the girl, for her every occasional visit, even if only out of necessity for the sake of filling in for Potter, was only met with coldness and his ignoring her presence as he did to everyone else. 

 

He quietly eyes her, thinking of her tortured screams at the Manor, Weasley in the basement screaming for her, Bellatrix's brutal yelling as she interrogates her over things Draco didn't entirely understand, the dreadful shrieks of _Crucio_.

 

"It shouldn't have happened," Draco says to her, his voice cracking from the dryness in his throat. Granger's head snaps up, surprised at the sound of him, at him speaking to her. He clears his throat. "What my au—what Bellatrix did to you… I'm sorry. It should not have happened."

 

Granger's face twitches awkwardly, like she isn't sure what to say or how to react.

 

"It… it shouldn't have, no," she settles on agreeing, after a speechless moment.

 

Draco nods and goes silent again. He isn't good at this. He isn't… he's not good at expressing any empathetic emotions, because he's never really had to. Any form of empathy from him, if it can be called that, came in crass ways itself, because he's never learned to feel comfortable expressing it.

 

It has in particular been directed at the house-elves of his Manor, yelling at a house-elf trying to flatten its own ears to go and do something else instead because he couldn't stand them torturing themselves, a house-elf beaten by his father commanded to have him test out certain healing spells he's read in his books (after a while, when he couldn't keep pretending that's all it was, just casting them without a word and walking away), convincing his father he'd deal with the house-elf when they've messed up by him, but all he does is drag them somewhere else by the arm and tell them never to be so stupid ever again. Draco's a despicable bastard, yes, he is fully aware, but he's a despicable bastard only to a point.

 

He's never had to account for all that he's ever done wrong, and he's done so much wrong he doesn't know if he's going to feel right ever again.

 

Draco had been rather cruel to Granger due to his prejudiced views against muggleborns. He'd been rude every now and then towards other muggleborns, passing a snide comment or two, but he'd focused most of his conditioned hatred against the muggleborn girl that seemed to best him at everything he wanted to be better at, whether that was in academics or having won over Potter's friendship and his attention against Draco. She was a walking contradiction of what he's been taught to believe all his life, that muggleborns are inferior, less smarter, less talented, less worthy.

 

Being tortured by the very people that shared his blood status and, once, his own racist beliefs about anyone associated with muggles has certainly changed his perspective. Everything he had been taught to believe no longer fit within his belief system, had gone loose now and fallen away into the crumble and debri of everything he had ever known.

 

It seems to him now that the blood purists are the ones that need to go more than anyone, that wreak havoc and chaos unnecessarily for a superficial idea of what makes them superior, that are far more capable of bloodshed and violence and cruelty than most muggleborns he knew due to their falsified justification as to why they deserve the right to hurt or consider lesser anyone not like them. His own father—

 

Draco swallows hard, not quite ready to go down that train of thought, not quite ready to look behind the curtains at all the darkness and grief and agony, the unresolved issues that won't ever—

 

He blinks, rapid and hard. "I should not have treated you the way I did. I'm sorry."

  

Granger's gaze is fixated on him, an unfathomable expression pinching her face. Draco thinks he might have just sounded like a fool, a stupid, underwhelming apology and a mere acknowledgment that he shouldn't have been the way he was to make up for years' worth of unkindness and injustice. He looks away from her, awkward and uncomfortable and embarrassed.

 

He had been broken by the people that represented everything he had once believed in, purebloods that wanted to rid the Wizarding World of everyone but themselves, and was rescued by the very people that had represented everything he had ever hated, people he called mudbloods and blood traitors living in poverty, and stupid beautiful green-eyed gits that rejected his friendship on a train and got adored for something they didn't even remember and made him fall in love in a robe shop.

 

What a kick in the arse.

 

In his dreams, his life started off the way it naturally did. He'd learned whatever his parents had taught him here and there, but eventually, in his dreams, his belief system came to line up with his actual and present mindset. His discriminatory conditioning began to fall away, inexplicably and all on its own, which perhaps could have been explained by Harry's company and influence there.

 

The dreamshad gone on just as life does, unpredictable and out of his control, but unrealistically picturesque nonetheless.They seemed to have stuck as closely to reality as possible, all the while giving him everything he desired, only drawing on whatever knowledge or assumptions he had had of anything and anyone and changing only the few key parts of his life that could have changed everything and made his life simply perfect. His father's un-coverted and unconditional affection and approval, his mother's happiness and uninhibited adoration towards him and lack of any trouble and distress, Severus as himself—essentially his entire family, as well as his friends—a notable lack of Death-Eaters and Voldemort. Love and light and happiness. Harry. _Harry_.

 

Draco's mind feels somewhat hazy now, watching the white paint of the ceiling grow dim and grow far away from his mind. He thinks he might be going away again. He really shouldn't think so much.

 

It's only Granger's hushed voice that snaps him back somewhat.

 

"Thank you, Malfoy."

 

…

 

Upon Malfoy's recovery enough to be deemed suitable to stand at trial, he is taken to Wizengamot with Harry.

 

It goes about as well as expected.

 

By the time it's over, Malfoy's left shaking in his anxiety, eyes wide as he falls back against the wall outside the courtroom, crowds of people bustling in and out. Harry grips him by the shoulders and leads him over to whatever empty room he can find and lets him fall apart there, unable to believe that all charges are cleared against him and that he is a free man, that the consequence is a cut-off of much of his wealth and a probational period of six months. It's not great either, but Malfoy only seems concerned with the fact that he doesn't have to go to Azkaban. He drops his face into Harry's shoulder and just shakes and shakes and shakes, trying not to weep but not being able to calm down either.

 

…

 

And then one day, it's over.

 

Harry comes back to Malfoy's hospital room, the bed in the middle of the room with the steel skeleton beneath the mattress, the window on the other side of the room that poured in sunlight, the off-white walls cracked and mildewed, the small wooden nightstand beside the bed, the TV at the front of it on the wall, everything the same as he's been seeing for the past two months and a half.

 

The only thing that's different is Malfoy.

 

Malfoy's standing up on his feet, completely healthy and well, like he wasn't confined to his bed only a week ago. His back is to Harry, narrow shoulders clad in his black suit and the collar of his black button-up shirt peaking out at his neck, his trousers and shoes black too, looking every bit the posh rich boy Harry remembers him to be. His suitcase is on the bed in front of him.

 

"Malfoy." A huff of an awed smile escapes Harry.

 

Malfoy turns around at the sound of his voice, an elegant eyebrow quirked and a pleased smirk on his lips.

 

"Potter," Malfoy reciprocates, with a bow of his head.

 

Harry's speechless for a moment. He shakes his head slightly, somewhat incredulous. It seems quite sudden and surprising to him, what with Areen constantly insisting on Malfoy not being ready to exert so much on his body yet and not being allowed out of bed without support. Now he's well enough to, as it apparently looks to be, walk out of here freely.

 

"You look…"

 

"Functional?" Malfoy supplies.

 

 _Good._ _You look good._

 

"You look well. This is great. Um, this… this is brilliant. Really." Harry breathes out, a grin overtaking his face. Malfoy half-smiles in return.

 

Harry suddenly realizes then that he doesn't know what Malfoy's going to do now and where he's going to go. There are still two weeks of vacations left, and Harry's going to spend the rest of it with Hermione, the Weasleys, Andromeda and Teddy. The obvious answer for Malfoy seems to be to go to his mother first, but he can't imagine him staying there too long given its history.

 

"Where will you go?"

 

Malfoy remains silent. He bites his cheek in uncertainty, glancing down at his shoes as he puts his hands into his pockets.

 

"I don't know," he says softly. "To my mother first, of course. But then… I don't know."

 

Harry jerks his head in a nod of understanding. He thinks of saying, "come along with me," because he has a strange, uneasy sort of feeling about Malfoy leaving just like this, and perhaps, _perhaps_...not only because Harry worries about him being alone. But then he really thinks of what he's about to invite him to. Malfoy and the Weasleys? Like water and oil. Ron and Malfoy are going to rip each other apart if they had to stay together for a day, let alone two weeks, and Malfoy's probably got his prim and proper rich boy tendencies and won't last that long in a small house of eight people.

 

"Well, I'll, um… I guess this is it, huh?" Harry says, awkwardly. He doesn't know what to say here, now, to an old foe that's quite not a foe anymore, someone that's… they've never quite given this a name, really, but there is something there, a certain bond, perhaps that of the one that saved and the saved, of the one that needed and the one that was needed, of seeing the other at their lowest and caring for them. "Take care of yourself, I guess, and err... see you in two weeks, yeah?"

 

Harry is hopeful, but as soon as the words come out and he sees the look on Malfoy's face, the look where he tips his head back, lips parting slightly as shifts on his feet, like he's about to disappoint him or negate him.

 

Malfoy lips tighten together in a rare show of remorse. "Not likely, Potter."

 

Harry's heart drops down low in his chest, sinking down to his gut like an anchor. "Oh."

 

"Even if I wanted to, it's not like I'll be welcomed back there anyway."

 

Harry latches on. "I can talk to Professor—"

 

Malfoy shakes his head quickly. "I _said,_  even if I wanted to."

 

And then it goes quiet. Just quiet. Malfoy breaks off eye-contact to stare at the wall beside him. Harry's eyes traverse around in uncertainty as well then, landing on a spot on the floor.

 

There's a part of him that he's trying to push down, the part of him that burns with a whisper of, _after everything, you just leave. Just like that._ But this is Malfoy, and Harry doesn't know if it's odd to be feeling this way about him.

 

"I never did say thank you, did I?"

 

Harry's head snaps up at that, his back straightening.

 

"Think it's better that way," Harry huffs with a light smile. "It'd just be odd and scary coming from you."

 

Malfoy huffs out a small laugh, surprising Harry. He really should do that more, Harry reckons.

 

"Yes, I suppose," Malfoy mutters, looking away. "Malfoys aren't quite known for their gratitude. Not that that matters anymore, but… hard to start when you've never said it as anything more than two insincerely polite words all your life."

 

Harry shrugs, feeling uncomfortable and somewhat embarrassed. He doesn't feel much entitled to any gratitude, but he has to admit that he may be just the tiniest bit curious to know what such humility looks like on a boy who he's always known to be the exact opposite of.

 

Malfoy inhales deeply, and then slowly ambles forward, hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers. Harry's gaze follows him, follows his face, nervous and strangely mellowed out with something.

 

"You were." Malfoy's voice is soft in a way it's never been, and would have been beyond Harry's imagination before now. Harry's mind blanks at the words, wondering if he's missed a part of that sentence somehow. Malfoy comes to a stop right in front of him, standing too close, so close Harry has to raise his head slightly to compensate for their mild height difference. "Even with your broken glasses and your oversized, old clothes and your rugged worn shoes… you were."

 

Harry's not at all sure what that means or what Malfoy's getting at. He's not really breathing, for some reason, not really understanding why Malfoy's looking at him like…

 

Malfoy's throat flexes, his eyes half-lidded from being fixated somewhere on the lower part of his face, a soft furrow in his forehead. "You were the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen."

 

Harry blinks, confused and more than a little baffled.

 

His mind takes him back to that day in the Madam Malkin's robe shop, meeting the pale and pointed boy who was having his own robes fitted, who sounded too snobby like his spoiled cousin, Dudley, made fun of Hagrid and rather rudely asked him about his parents' sort.

 

Harry's fairly certain this is just a very odd dream that he's going to wake up from soon.

 

He startles at the lanky, warm fingers under his chin pushing it upward, and with his mind essentially frozen and blacked out, the world around him a dream-like daze where he doesn't know if what is happening is really real, he can't move, can't comprehend past the shock of what's not entirely sinking in.

 

And then he's being kissed, mouth against his, soft and chaste and sweet. It lasts hardly two seconds, just as tenderly letting go, murmuring breaths of words Harry doesn't clearly hear against his lips. Moonstone eyes are lowered to stare down into his own closely. The warm fingers under his chin brush against his skin, a sort of restrained but helpless touch that falls away after a second. Harry's mind is frozen, his body frozen, his face frozen, green staring back into smoke orbs.

 

And then Malfoy steps back.

 

It's there again, that strange and hushed look that Harry hadn't been able to make sense of, and now can, like a language he's finally begun to understand. Tenderness and desperation and longing and...

 

It's all right there in that moment, that final moment, raw and open and vulnerable, all right there for Harry to see in the melted, soft silver of them, the look he kept seeing all this time, that occasional glimpse he caught of Malfoy looking very oddly at him back in Hogwarts, across dinner tables or fields near lakes, and not being able to comprehend, he had found it nothing short of wicked.

 

There were the times throughout their stays at the hospital, during their conversations, sometimes waking up after he falls back asleep in his chair to a brief glimpse of it, a split-second movement of Malfoy's eyes flicking away, something schooled away quickly, as if he'd perhaps been watching and observing him in silence. Harry had always shook it off as something crazy.

 

At the Manor, before Malfoy had refused to identify him for certain.

 

Oh. _Oh_.

 

Harry's heart is in his throat, pounding and throbbing and tight.

 

"Pass it on to your friends for me, will you?"

 

_What?_

 

"W-what," Harry stammers, slightly winded, his mind not working and not being able to think past what's just happened. The kiss. Malfoy. Malfoy kissed him. Did he just tell him to pass on a kiss to his friends?  His face scrunches. "You… you mean, the... kiss?" The  _kiss_. Malfoy had just kissed him. _Malfoy_ had just-

 

Malfoy stares at him in this painfully fond and exasperated way, and it feels a little like he's looking into the eyes of someone who's looking at the love of his life, who's loved someone for more years than Harry can imagine loving someone without being loved back. Seven years. Malfoy had felt this way about him for _seven_ years, if Harry understood it right. His mind blanks again at the thought that won't sink into an understanding. He can't process a damned thing right now.

 

Malfoy shakes his head at him, a small, mellow smirk curving at his lips. Harry's mind kickstarts immediately by that, and remembers the murmur against his lips, and realizes Malfoy had said, _thank you_ , then.

 

His cheeks grow even warmer, flustered and embarrassed. "Oh, you mean—you mean the thank you, of course. Um."

 

Malfoy snorts, satirical, as if he doesn't know just what he's done. "Honestly, Potter. You're lucky you've got a nice face. Might just have been about the only thing that's gotten you this far, besides your brainiac friend."

 

"Malfoy, I don't…" Harry shakes his head, hesitant and contrite. "you know that I don't feel—"

 

"I know, Potter," Malfoy says calmly. "Why do you think I kept my mouth shut all these years?"

 

"I don't understand." Harry's forehead furrows. "You hated me."

 

Malfoy shrugs. "I did."

 

"Well, then how can you… how do you feel that way about—"

 

"I hated you because you rejected me, and because you were adored more than I was, and because you were one more reason I couldn't be what my father wanted me to be. It wasn't your fault, I know, but in my head then, it was." Malfoy pauses, and then inhales a slow, composing breath. His gaze darts away, darts back, and his voice is quieter this time, as if saying the words out loud and outright made him feel particularly exposed and vulnerable. "And I hated you because I fell in love with you and nothing could ever come of it."

 

Harry doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything. He still feels baffled and blank, feels lost and a little like everything inside of him has been scattered around the wrong way, things he'd always known with certainty no longer as certain.

 

Malfoy steps back from him, turns around and picks up his suitcase from the bed he's spent months on. He adjusts his tie and suit, runs one hand down the front and then looks back to Harry, sharp grey eyes having grown back to their normal look, like it never happened, like they hadn't just been as soft as cotton in a way Harry could never have been able to imagine Malfoy's gaze being, especially not when it was _Harry_ that it had been on.

 

"Goodbye, Potter."

 

He still isn't able to say a damned thing, still stunned silent when Malfoy walks past him, and then out the door, not looking back as Harry watches his back turn a corner, watches him leave.

 

 

**...**

 

 

The kiss keeps Harry awake for weeks and he can't quite explain why.

 

 

* * *

 

**End of Part One**

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As implied by 'End of Part One', there will be a part two/sequel, for anyone interested. I'll update this story for an alert for who aren't subscribed to my profile  
> Heads up, it will be a while (and I mean /months/) before it will be here. I'll have exams that I need to focus on first.
> 
> Thank you so, so, so much for reading this far, for all the kudos and bookmarks and subscriptions, all the comments and the love!! Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. 💙
> 
> Part two is not out yet and will be written sometime after April.
> 
> 6/02/2020:  
> I have come to realize that I may not be satisfied with the original plan that I had for the second part. I am still deeply interested in exploring this concept and Harry's journey to falling for Draco, but until I've developed my plan into something more, something I'm happy with or come up with something better, it is an uncertainty as to when I will be able to write and publish the next part.


	11. Alert For The Second Part!

Hello!

For anyone interested, the first chapter of the second part has been posted, which has been titled 'My Beautiful Boy'. I will be deleting this alert in the near future.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who have read the first part, for all the kudos, subscriptions, bookmarks and comments. I hadn't expected the response it received and it blew me away, so thank you thank you thank you! I appreciate it more than I can express and hope that you will enjoy the second part as well! 💙

 


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